“Quick—DOJ, NBI, Ombudsman, never mind the defunct ICI, get Amenah to tell the truth, before she disappears like Zaldy and Manny, or is gone like Cathy!”
I FIRST learned about two creatures named Edi and Pati from former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, for whom I was a consultant.
Sitting beside him in the weekly department heads meeting after the Monday flag ceremony at City Hall, he would warn city officials about the corrupt practices of asking for a share of the loot.
“Paano si Edi (short for Eddie)?”
“E di si boss (the department head or some such official)” when asking for “lagay.”
“At Pati (short for Patty) rin ako.”
“Tigilan niyo ‘yang Edi at Pati,” Mayor “tokayo” would admonish the department heads.
Everybody happy, that is the rule in corrupt officialdom, whether in Customs where even security guards partake from the manna, or among the police, where PO-1 has to share with the higher-ups.
As in DPWH, it is now revealed in all its gory details, from the “dilis” in the DE’s office, to the “sapsap” who are project engineers, to the “bangus” DE, to the “pampano” RD, the “tangigue, lapu-lapu’s and bluefin tuna” in the central office, the “pating” and the “buwaya” in Congress and Malacanang.
That is how the whole corruption saga in the flood control atbp DPWH mess has unfolded before our very eyes, starting from “Mahiya naman kayo” to the now unearthed Cabral files.
“Edi si Cong. Edi si Sen. Edi si Usec.”
“Pati si Sec, si Chair. Pati si Speaker, si SP.”
“Pati rin si ES.”
But ES is a former jurist. Not your ordinary jurist, but once the highest magistrate of the land! “Kataas-taasang mahistrado,” my Lola and her cousin, then a Court of Appeals “mahistrado” would reverentially call the chief justice whenever they met whether in our house during the town fiesta or lanzones party, or in an Ermita restaurant where they would lunch together, younger me in tow.
So the former ES emphatically denies having made any request, endorsement or authorization of any DPWH project at any stage of the budget process.
That denial is entirely believable. No lawyer worth his salt, let alone a former chief justice, would be so foolish as to have himself identified as a proponent of budgetary allocations outside of his executive domain.
So was his name used? His honor was borrowed?
Cathy Cabral is gone. Maybe Bersamin’s nephew Adrian, or resigned DOJ Usec Jojo Cadiz, and most of all, resigned DBM secretary Amenah Pangandaman should be asked by the Ombudsman to shed light on this.
If Bersamin did not say “E di ako,” or “pati ako,” then for whom was his name borrowed, his honor purloined?
E di sino pa?
How about resigned DPWH secretary Bonoan?
If his Usec Bernardo, as per testimony before the Lacson Blue Ribbon, has been giving him choice cuts from all the projects he supervised, and with a part ownership in a four-star Clark ecozone hotel, why would he still ask for an “allocable” from another undersecretary, with paper trail at that?
He may not be a lawyer, but even an engineer with a long service record in government knows that documents are discoverable.
Hindi rin naman tanga. But then again, Cathy, who should have known “para kanino” the name of Bonoan was used, is now silenced. Maybe Amenah would know.
Quick—DOJ, NBI, Ombudsman, never mind the defunct ICI, get Amenah to tell the truth, before she disappears like Zaldy and Manny, or is gone like Cathy!
Since Cathy cannot corroborate Leviste, nor Bernardo’s “tell-all,” are we looking at a dead end? No sharks, no crocodiles will get charged because the evidence died with Cabral?
The young Leandro Leviste, whose wealth provenance is now being questioned by his detractors, may have used unorthodox means to get the Cabral files, which Secretary Dizon now claims.
But Leviste’s derring-do serves its purpose, and he puts Dizon’s team in a bind.
And what will Ombudsman Boying do with the hot potato that both DPWH and Leviste claim are already in his hands?
It is now Lean’s word against Vince who, after all the stress from a job he probably regrets he accepted, is now somewhere in the globe, skiing over some snow-laden slopes to momentarily forget the nightmare he has gotten into.
Once again, where is Amenah, another alumnus of the late Edong Angara’s graduate school of government, just as Vince and Trygve were?
Such a royal mess. If only our political royalty can be blamed for malfeasance or non-feasance, “where the evidence leads.”
Malfeasance is criminal. Non-feasance means “nabudol.”
