“Bribe? Or an offer that they could not refuse?” SHOOTINGSTRAIGHT By Bobit S. Avila Philippine Star October 1, 2013 (Updated) “That exposé by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada wasn’t even given a “bombshell” status by most pundits especially that P50 million “bribe” given to the Senators for the conviction of former Chief Justice Renato Corona for the simple reason that these were already rumored during the impeachment trial. But now it all seems that Sen. Jinggoy exploded his bombshell with a delayed fuse… that erupted in the hallowed halls of Congress. In Cebuano we have a saying, “Ni ulbo ang lampinig.” It was like a Hornet’s nest exploded in the midst of the Senate floor sending everyone scampering for cover.” “While no one really cares to take Sen. Jinggoy seriously, however, his exposé was now publicly admitted by former Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and DBM Sec. Florencio Abad. Perhaps the most important Senate personality to officially admit this as true is no less than Senate President Franklin Drilon who admitted to getting P100 million from Malacañang last year from that so-called “Disbursement Acceleration Program.” Honestly, we don’t know what kind of animal this is, but from the definition it sounds like a fast track to the people’s money!” “In his interview over DzMM, Sen. Drilon insisted that it was not a bribe to secure a conviction for CJ Corona. I may agree with him in a way that Sen. Drilon would have voted to convict CJ Corona because he is obviously a lapdog of Pres. Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III. So while he doesn’t want to call it a bribe, we need to call it something… like a bonus perhaps?” “So we’d like to ask Sec. Abad… “How come the three Senators, namely, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos, Sen. Miriam Santiago and Sen. Ping Lacson did not get any extra money from Malacañang? Then comes former Sen. Joker Arroyo who last Sunday accused Sec. Abad of deception by lumping his name together with the 19 Senators that got extra money for convicting CJ Corona. Wow! When will Malacañang stop lying to the Filipino people?” “In order to find the right word, I checked with my dictionary on the other meanings of bribe, bribery and the like and here’s what I got, “Buy off, suborn, pay off, grease someone’s palm, fix, square, inducement, incentive, payola, payoff, boodle, sweetener and kickback.” So there you have it, a list of words that you can use other than bribe. So let’s just call it a P100 million incentive for Sen. Drilon for doing the President’s bidding. Gads! It was P50 million more than what the others got!” “At this point, when graft charges are being slapped on our Senate President who has publicly admitted to getting P100 million for whatever name he wants to call it, the most honorable thing Sen. Drilon must do is step down from the Senate Presidency. Better still if he quits the Senate altogether because you people have besmirched the reputation of the Philippine Senate through your scandalous money making schemes. Hey, we have not even found out if you folks were involved in the Napoles scam!” “Opinion ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch:” “Then last Saturday we learned that the 15th Congress was going on a two-week recess?? Why are they doing this? Just when things got so hot? For sure, these honorable “crooks” would huddle to find ways or excuses… why all of the sudden, they were given tons of money after CJ Corona was convicted? How liberal these people are with the money of the Filipino people, when many or our people live in abject poverty. This is why a great number of our people are already angry with the political elite that rules this land!” “But to the minds of the indignant Filipino people… these Senators convicted CJ Corona on the mere issue of his not putting his secret bank statements in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SALN), which according to Sen. Joker Arroyo was something that could still be corrected. But the humongous amount of money that these Senators were promised from the godfather in Malacañang was an offer that they could not refuse.” “So now the nation is in a quandary. While we have a two-week respite where Congress is on recess… we must seek justice for the injustice done to former Chief Justice Renato Corona. As I said, this may be a sideshow to the bigger P10 billion Napoles scam of which many Senators may be found guilty. So how do we get about getting justice for this crime of bribery?” “Again I would like to reiterate my proposal that we wrote last Saturday for a true People’s Court, an impartial court that I would like to have former Chief Justice Reynato Puno to head, together with members from civic society, the academe, the judiciary, the clergy, media and the military. Since we wrote that column, I was asked to put in names. However at this point, I can only think of Mrs. Leonor M. Briones who is a professor emeritus of Public Administration at the National College of Public Administration at the University of the Philippines. Mind you, I haven’t met her, but I believe that she is a trustworthy person whom we need in this trying times.”
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 04:30:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015