Nothing screams Aquino hypocrisy and double standard louder than Budget Secretary Butch Abad. To be sure, there are countless examples, anecdotes, policies, victims of political persecution since PNoy assumed office in 2010 that all add up to the grand duplicity by which this government operates. But Butch Abad, by the sheer size and scope of the pork barrel scam, and by the sheer irony of him being secretary of budget of all things, is surely taking up a lot of space in this disgusting diorama unfolding before our eyes.
It would be remembered that Abad is a member of the "heroic" Hyatt 10 which demanded that former president Arroyo resign in the wake of the Hello Garci scandal. In July 2005, nearly a month since the tapped recordings surfaced, cabinet secretaries in the Arroyo government who were affiliated with Cory Aquino planned to stage a mass resignation supposedly culminating in the ouster of GMA, either through her voluntary resignation or yet another people power. But their plan was foiled by Arroyo who, in anticipation, asked for the courtesy resignations of her entire cabinet a night before the Hyatt 10 scheduled their treachery.
Talk was rife among Palace insiders at the time that after the Garci tapes surfaced early June 2005, a resolution from the agrarian reform council was incidentally set to come out in relation to the Hacienda Luisita, one that was not favorable to the Cojuangco-Aquino family who've illegally and immorally clung to the obscenely ginormous sugar plantation for decades. Cory herself allegedly went to the Palace to ask Arroyo to influence peddle in behalf of her family, but that the latter had turned her down and for good reason. Arroyo was always mindful of the critical mass (learning from the ouster of Marcos and Estrada), and if she gave in to the request of Cory and word came out that she interfered in favor of the Cojuangco oligarchy, that might lead to the tipping point she feared — uncontrolled public outrage — and another people power.
When she didn't get what she wanted, Cory supposedly rallied her allies in Gloria's government to withdraw support through mass resignation, that's according to well-placed Palace sources at the time. Highly probable, especially after Dinky Soliman's infamous change of heart. One day she's crying, giving Gloria flowers while singing the Land Before Time's 'If we hold on together' — the next, she's asking for her resignation. Bipolar? Nah. Loyal Cory minion.
Back to Abad. Abad joined other Cory cohorts and demanded Gloria resign because of the scandal, even in the absence of proof (listen to the tapes closely and you'd know why they aren't enough), never mind due process. Process didn't matter to them, for them GMA was too tarnished to continue to govern. Never mind, too, that credible people eventually came to GMA's defense, saying the call was placed when the certificates of canvass were already in Congress, so Comelec Commissioner Garcillano could not have altered the votes since he was in Mindanao (and the COCs were guarded and monitored via CCTV at the Batasan in Quezon City). Noted economist Prof. Solita "Mareng Winnie" Monsod was one of those credible figures who belabored that point. Monsod opined that there was no proof of cheating, and that the impropriety was in calling a Comelec official at the height of the canvassing, but that Arroyo already apologized for it (she did not apologize for cheating, so please listen carefully to what she said in her televised address before you conclude). Simply put, she called him because he knew the figures and she wanted to see if her computation matched with the figures he had access to being Comelec commissioner for Mindanao.
Furthermore, the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, acting on the election protest of then vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda against Gloria's running mate, former vice president Noli de Castro, actually found no irregularities in the ballots they opened (they opened the Cebu ballots where they alleged FPJ was cheated the most), ballots that showed both president and vice president. Nada! There was no significant irregularity that supports allegations of massive fraud in Cebu in 2004. So current efforts to revive the issue in the Senate are purely personal and diversionary, and a distraction to what the Senate is supposed to do (legislation) given the upper house's shitty and sticky situation.
But I digress. The point is, Abad and others in the Hyatt 10, like the holier-than-thou gods and goddesses that they are, wanted Gloria to resign and condemned her without proof (the wire-tapping since debunked by the expert opinion of credible resource persons, and later on, by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal itself). But now, now that Abad himself is dragged to an even larger scam, a multi-billion crime that has transformed the bureaucracy into a mafia, an organized crime where corruption is institutionalized, he refuses to resign? Noynoy refuses to fire him and, in fact, stands by him? He is not only dragged, mind you; the alleged mastermind Janet Napoles points to him as her teacher, therefore, the brains of this evil, the master of the mastermind.
If he asked Gloria to resign, he too should resign. Until such time, he will remain Abad example, the worst in fact.