IT was almost as expected -- that things would not go smoothly, even before the actual trial of the legislators suspected of having pocketed a large part of their own pork barrel funds or, more correctly, their Priority Development Assistance Funds, their PDAFs. But, of course, everyone knows that the legislators actually pocketed their own funds. One wonders why we receive press releases from, for instance, the Japanese Embassy, when they have turned over a school building built by the Japanese in Mindanao, complete with photos and the amount spent for the construction, Why have we never had any press releases from our legislators with photos of the turnover of whatever their PDAFs were spent on? At any rate, what went wrong at the Senate hearing was that the Senate Blue Ribbon chairman blew his top when the witnesses he was expecting – the Napoles employees turned whistle blowers -- did not appear. He had apparently ordered (via subpoena) the Secretary of Justice to bring these whistle-blowers. Sen. Teofisto Guingona III berated Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for her failure to present the whistle-blowers to the hearing on the assurance of the Secretary that she would be bringing them. As senators are wont to act when things do not get their way, Guingona accused De Lima of diminishing the authority of the committee before promptly declaring the suspension of the fourth public hearing. De Lima had a good excuse. She explained that based on the Ombudsman Act as well as the rules of procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman, no such exposure for whistle blowers is allowed “if it will prejudice the disposition of a case before the Office of the Ombudsman” led by Conchita Carpio-Morales. De Lima said she was asking the committee to “provide the Ombudsman the opportunity to state her position on the matter” since, with the filing of the first batch of complaints, Ombudsman Carpio-Morales had “assumed jurisdiction over the case. “Therefore, she now has the prerogative or the authority to determine whether it would be proper for whistle blowers who are involved in that case to further elaborate or to further testify on what they already stated in their respective affidavits as submitted to the Ombudsman.” Guingona would not have it: “And what you have done is unprecedented. Unprecedented. And in my view, you have attempted to undermine and diminish the power of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee. I’m very, very disappointed and I do not agree with your stand.” Guingona right there and then issued a subpoena – signed by Senate President Franklin Drilon – ordering De Lima to produce whistle blowers Benhur Luy, Gertrudes Luy, Marina Sula and Merlina Suñas to attend the next hearing. “If I receive a subpoena then I have no choice. Although I would prefer that between now and Thursday, we would already know the position of the Ombudsman,” says De Lima. (I have no doubt that the Justice Secretary would have it by then.) If ever the other whistle-blowers would appear before the committee in the next hearings, De Lima said that she would strongly advise them against revealing more names other than those included in the plunder and malversation of public funds charges filed with the Office of the Ombudsman last Sept.16. For Thursday’s hearing, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has also subpoenaed Janet Napoles herself to testify. Clearly, the Senators are not actually looking for answers but only for their fair share of media exposure. One would think that the smarter thing to do is to save whatever revelations these witnesses have to make for the trial of the legislators and their cohorts, who even now are looking for ways to save themselves. A businessman pointed out to me that nothing will happen to these cases. He says that it will be difficult enough to nail these legislators who are even now already saying that “the buck stops with my chief of staff,” in an effort to save themselves. All that they have to do is deny their signatures or even knowing anything about the millions that their employees picked up. My friend points out that there is no smoking gun that proves the guilt of the legislators and thus there is no way that they can be proven guilty “beyond reasonable doubt.” All they need to do is to deny everything. Thus, bringing these witnesses to an open hearing in the Senate whose main purpose is that of giving our Senators media exposure may not be the smart thing to do. These witnesses really ought to be kept silent until their day in court where their testimonies will be most useful. By bringing them before a panel of senators, some of whom could intimidate these witnesses into forgetting ever seeing that senator in their offices or make them forger other important parts of their testimonies. Besides, Senate hearings are mostly pretty useless, too, since whatever is discovered in these Senate hearing are more often than not forgotten even by the Senators themselves. How many Senate hearings have ever even produced a formal report of things that these hearings discovered? The most common excuse for a Senate hearing is that it is being conducted “in aid of legislation.” Yet, one wonders how many of these Senate hearings have actually ever produced any legislation. *** For now, on the verge of a trial that would bring charges against three sitting senators and scores of other legislators, past and present, the more important thing is for the Senate and our senators not to do anything that would in any way disturb the witnesses or cause them to doubt the wisdom of their volunteering to testify against their former boss, Janet Napoles, and her friends in the legislature. - See more at: malaya.ph/business-news/opinion/folly-senate-probes#sthash.qB9Miw95.dpuf
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:54:55 +0000
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