“What a way for the senators to act.”
There is a saying that when a right is violated, the best one could do is to bring it on. The one exercising that right must be vigorously defended with a sense of fortitude. Thus, when one invokes his right to be protected, one has the right to a redress of one’s grievance.
In this particular period in our acrimonious politics, the charges labelled by the opposition against the administration are not only off-key. They are charging a presidential candidate for crimes allegedly committed by his father. Yet, in not a single instance have they managed to prove their allegations. BBM is being made to answer, such that the issue against him has become tiresome. The opposition sounds monotonous in their attacks for they have been repeating an issue that has been there for more than three decades. They are equally accusing President Duterte of corruption, but for everything that they have been saying, Duterte is not a candidate.
As usual, the opposition is accusing the President of graft and corruption. They went through the rigmarole of holding an investigation using the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee as their podium to malign him. They hope to gather supporters out of hatred, racism and ideological discrimination, something that fits them to be called religious malcontent. They hypocritically denounce the President for alleged human rights violation, yet shouting to high heavens to surrender him to an international kangaroo court presided by a country that decimated ten percent of our people in the name of freedom and democracy.
Following the opposition’s political vice, they resort to the usual grandstanding, holding an investigation by intimidating witnesses to answer questions they want to hear, and to proclaim to the world that the President and his henchmen are corrupt. To make their nasty brand of democracy palatable, they insist that the investigation is integral to our democratic process.
The opposition inherited the rowdy American brand of people power. They take it as part of their freedom to maliciously slander our officials. To them, there is nothing wrong in exposing venalities in the government even if the consequence could ruin the government. This explains why we have an amputated version of democracy.
Many of those in the opposition could not even understand that the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is merely doing the work in aid of legislation. Its role is clarificatory. It has no business interrogating a witness for the fact that he is not an accused in a case. On the other hand, our legislators are there to clarify with the law they legislated and to fill that portion of the law to make the system of check and balance in our government operate. The Senate committee cannot usurp the powers of the executive department.
If there are grounds to suspect that venalities were committed, the committee members should promptly file criminal or administrative charges against the wrongdoer. Alas, none of them are willing to take that role because they have a totally different objective in mind, which is to embarrass the President to the satisfaction of their foreign brokers. Fortunately, the Duterte administration continues to exhibit his political magnanimity to friends and foes alike, and yet they still call him a dictator.
Remember, it was Gordon who first threatened the President by insinuating his alleged crony was involved in the purchase of COVID-19 medical kits. This put the President on the defensive, and had to defend his integrity and honor against these baseless attacks. The President then began to enumerate those acts of corruption allegedly committed by Senator Gordon. What irritated the President most is Gordon’s insinuation of swindling the government when his committee has not even filed criminal charges against the witnesses, and detaining her for not answering questions that would implicate the President.
Gordon was so nasty that he interrupted the Senate investigation, often interrupting the witness with nonsensical questions to put the administration in bad light. When his mouth began to recklessly insinuate anomaly in the procurement of funds for COVID-19 medical kits, the President said that he would demand that the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), wherein he is the Chairman, be audited.
Gordon was startled on what to say. He cannot invoke exemption from audit. Fortunately, the President was quick-witted to make a repartee that PNRC is a recipient of government funds from the PCSO and PAGCOR, and that qualifies COA to audit the PNRC to determine how much government funds were donated and received by it. Gordon overlooked that for as long as PNRC receives funds from the government irrespective of its status, it will be subject to government audit.
President Duterte was blunt in accusing Senator Gordon of pocketing the P86 million, and demanded the return of amount allocated to the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. The report says, the P86 million was part of the P149 million notice disallowed to SBMA during the time of Gordon.
The demand letter by COA serves as evidence for Gordon to either return or liquidate the unauthorized amount. Failure on the part of Gordon could subject him to court litigation. The findings of COA and the demand for him to return the amount now partake as prima facie evidence against him.
Note that the President is not preventing the opposition from exposing an alleged anomaly committed by Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation in the acquisition of face masks and shields, personal protective equipment, and COVID 19 test kits. The President only wants the members of the committee to present their evidence before they blurt out or file their case in court. The administration just wants the opposition to lay down the predicate that they are indeed holding on to a piece of evidence involving Pharmally. In its absence, the opposition is plainly engaged in a fishing expedition.
Senator Franklin Drilon has gone to the extent of accusing Michael Yang, a Chinese businessman, of having acquired a contract worth P11.5 billion. But it seems that Drilon is not bent on proving anything but just out to malign the person who was not even informed of the charge against him.
In fact, it was Senator Gordon who alluded that Pharmally swindled the government when it allegedly changed the expiration dates of the face shields before delivery. Admittedly, Pharmally executive Krizle Grace Mago did not know that on that day, she will be detained for not answering questions elicited from her who acted more as interrogators. She would not know the difference in her testimony in a committee investigation from a testimony in a formal court hearing which many in Congress could not also delineate.
The House committee on good government and public accountability had to take custody of Pharmally’s executive. None of the senators objected because the House Committee could not hold on to Ms. Mago without filing charges against her, notwithstanding that what the senators were doing was plainly “pasikat”. The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee headed by Gordon acted as though the witness was their hostage.