Disgusting

“Eeewwww” was the general reaction to the testimony in court last week about that woman’s medical condition – dealing with, among other things, her “urges” – and why she should continue to be kept in hospital. Disgusting is about the only word to describe it, but that is the same word that comes to mind when one reads that woman’s “Poor me!” affidavit.

“I am a mother and a wife foremost. I just wanted to make a living for my family,” she supposedly wrote in one of her affidavits. Since when does “make a living” mean stealing millions upon billions from the national treasury?

“Thus, as a mother, I am appealing for the exclusion of my children (I will not dignify them by using their names) in the above-mentioned complaints. My children had no knowledge, participation and involvement whatsoever in the subject cases,” she continued. This despite the fact that these very children had, in her absence, signed for and accepted oodles of cash representing commissions and/or bribes brought over by “agents” to their swanky condo unit. To pay for their extravagant parties and designer wardrobes and lavish lifestyles, all their expensive cars – they were said to have the most number of high-end vehicles in their swanky condo, raising the hackles of another resident who is a long-time car collector – did they think their mother was making a living selling puto? She was the one who taught her children about corruption.

“I realized that indeed I should tell the whole truth. By telling the truth, which the people have been clamoring and I have been wanting to do for a long time, I intend to help my country and work towards minimizing, if not totally eradicating corruption, so as not to put to waste these revelations,” she further wrote. Excuse me while I puke. Lying on her hospital bed supposedly bleeding (those “urges” again!) and she can still get on her high horse and pontificate about working to eradicate corruption?

The best way to eradicate corruption is to lock people like her in jail and not just throw away the key but weld the doors shut permanently.

There are serious doubts about this woman’s sincerity, credibility and reliability (forget honesty), and exactly how much of the “whole truth” there is in her affidavits (there are at least two, one dated May 12 and a “Sinumpaang Salaysay” dated May 26), statements and lists. It’s probably a deliberate ploy that she gave out different lists to different people so that no one can really be sure which is the accurate list, if any one of them is really accurate. The number of people implicated is growing by leaps and bounds, and I guess by throwing everyone in, enough confusion and doubt can be created so that the truly guilty can benefit from the muddle.

The justice secretary, whose words and actions are not really helping clear up the muddle, wrote to the Senate when she finally sent the affidavits that “all will be made known to the public at the right time.” When that time will be is anybody’s guess.

She continued in her letter: “We simply ask that those mandated with investigating these crimes be given the chance to complete their thorough investigation so that, in case there are those who are being implicated without basis, such persons may be accorded some measure of protection from yet-to-be-validated accusations and from being unfairly tried by publicity.”

The Senate committee chairman released the two affidavits anyway, so, like the kaingin or the slash-and-burn method, everyone is getting scorched.

But, as some new revelations from the hospital room come out, maybe not everyone...