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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Fighting to save his soul

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Commission on Elections chairman, Andres “Andy” Bautista is now fighting to save his soul. Even if he topped the Bar exams, the battle he faces has nothing to do with the legality of the crime he could be accused of or the strength of evidence to acquit him. Rather, it hinges on his credibility. I wonder – what kind of wrath will justice descend upon this arrogant and unbridled hypocrite.

The wrath of God struck him like thunder. The retribution came not from the persons he oppressed when he was the head of the Cory Aquino-created robbing machine but, my goodness, from the very person with whom he is supposed to share the same bed.

Now, that he has been exposed, he knows it is his credibility that is on trial before the Filipino people. Bautista now stands as the ultimate epitome of a con man. Even God is probably shaking His head on the kind of genus he created and permitted to mingle with the rest of humanity.

Bautista sought to meticulously build a facade when he served as the chief enforcer of honesty in the Cory Aquino-created robbing machine called Presidential Commission on Good Government and as chairman of the Commission on Elections.

As bar topnotcher, he knows there is no saving lost credibility. Losing that is equivalent to saying nobody trusts you, and no lawyer, not even a psychiatrist, can help you. The issue is not about what we might say “double-bladed” philandering husband, but about the gargantuan amount of wealth he amassed and was exposed by his brave and patriotic wife, Patricia Paz Bautista. As a notorious hypocrite, he destroyed his credibility that not even God can save him.

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The wrath of a betrayed wife turned out to be a windfall to the Filipino people who have long been duped by these yellow advocates of bogus freedom and democracy. As released by his wife’s lawyer, Bautista has properties worth about P306,877,000.00; bank accounts P880,444,299.57; shares of stocks P38,552,438.11; retirement/pension plan P22,120,000.00; loans given out P51,167,819.00 or for a total of P1,299,668,556.68 as of November 2016.

In a ten-page affidavit, Patricia said her husband has several passbooks from the Luzon Development Bank (LDB) and from Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corp. (HSBC) itemized as follows: deposits at the LDB in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, amounting to P227,701,053; LDB Makati Branch, P101,519, 909; dollar and peso account at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) amounting to $12,778.30 and P257,931.60, respectively; and Hong Kong dollar deposits at HSBC in Hong Kong amounting to HK$948,358.97. In contrast, he only declared a net worth of P176.3 million as of December 31, 2016 in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN). Bautista stated that he had total assets of P241.8 million, composed of P158.5 worth of real properties and P83.3 million worth of personal properties. Bautista’s liabilities reach P65.5 million.

It is also alleged that Bautista has 14 properties of which two were not declared including a property in San Francisco, California. The wife also said that Bautista has foreign investments in Bauman Enterprises Ltd., in the British Virgin Islands, Mantica International Ltd. In Brunie, and Mega Achieve Inc., in Anguilla. What the wife failed to mention is he was once the President of the St. Francis, Shangri La Homeowners Association, a luxurious sky rise condominium in Mandaluyong which surely means he owns one to two units with each costing around P15 million.

For that fact that we have only been accustomed to believing that ill-gotten wealth is the most serious crime we can attribute to a pillaging public official, we tend to overlook that Bautista has in fact committed far most serious crime of betraying the sovereign will of the people. At a glance, we can say he committed no less than five serious crimes that in other countries could warrant his hanging five times.

One, for cooperating with a front company of the CIA in tampering the result of our election in 2016. Second, for receiving huge sums of money from Smartmatic which he foolishly denied as commission but “referral fee.” Third, for using the office of Atty. Nilo Divina to cover up his dealings with the sequestered Baseco, UCPB and with Smartmatic. Fourth, secretly meeting Leni Robredo in a condominium owned by his mother-in-law on July 16, 2016. Fifth, for going to Washington to talk to the operatives of Smartmatic to possibly firm up the fraud that in the event President Duterte is ousted or die while in office their bogus vice president will succeed.

These facts now appear to be true because the authority granted to Smartmatic resulted in the unmistakable rigging of the last election. Bongbong Marcos was leading close to one million and by sunrise he was overtaken by almost the same figure which means overnight the vote counting machines of the CIA loaded close to two million votes in favor of the Robredo. Likewise, many could not believe the leading hatchet man of the Yellow charlatans for the Senate garnered more votes than President Duterte which is mathematically impossible.

As former ABS-CBN news executive Charie Villa said, she “believes Commission on elections (Comelec) chair Andres Bautista managed to amass close to P1 billion in undeclared wealth because of election rigging and his ties to voting technology firm Smartmatic.” House Deputy Minority Leader Harry Roque was prompted to file House Resolution No. 1171, seeking an inquiry into the millions of ill-gotten wealth and unethical payoffs allegedly acquired by Bautista as Comelec chairman.

The enemy this hypocrite created is the one chewing him up. Does the public need an explanation when they came to know why he deposited many of his loot with the Luzon Development Bank owned by the family of Rene Limcaoco, Pinoy’s undersecretary of that equally corrupt Joseph “Jun” Abaya of the DoTC; that he cannot be guilty of violating the Anti-Money Laundering Law when evidence show he has substantial amount of deposits in foreign banks which he did not declare in his SALN; and that he did not violate R.A. No. 3019 of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practice Act?

Even if it was his wife who hurled the first brick by nastily accusing him of sexual perversion, that cannot detract the public from focusing on just how he amazingly he acquired more than a billion worth of unexplained wealth. The interest of the public is not about his marriage, but the disclosure about the “other” carefully guarded secret that somehow indicates he was under the payroll of Smartmatic. 

rpkapunan@gmail.com

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