The
Three Musketeers
But getting them behind
bars is a long shot at best
Although
the Filipino Ombudsman last week preferred charges against three of the
country’s most powerful lawmakers, Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon “Bong” Revilla and
Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, they may never see inside a jail cell, given the
country’s culture of impunity and the limited resources of the prosecutors.
The
three each face one count of plunder and multiple counts of corruption for
their alleged part in a long-running scandal so vast that it almost beggars the
imagination. A half dozen “lists” of those involved have made it into the
press, naming almost all of the Senate and about a third of the House of
Representatives as enmeshed in the affair, dubbed the Pork Barrel Scandal,
which involves the outright theft of as much as PHP10 billion (US$227.5
million).
According
to one list referred to by Panfilo Lacson, an ally of President Benigno S.
Aquino III, 21 of the 25 incumbent senators, 90 of the 292 congressmen and two
cabinet members were implicated in the scam and a second one involving funds
from energy royalties on projects off the coast of the southern island of
Palawan between 2000 and 2010.
The
Philippine Daily Inquirer, showing amazingly aggressive reporting from the
beginning of the affair in mid-2013, somehow managed to obtain disk drives from
the computers of Janet Lim Napoles, a bagwoman at the center of the case, and
Benhur Luy, her nephew, who blew the whistle on the scam in the first place.
Lacson earlier revealed that the Napoles family had given him a draft of an
unsigned affidavit, which reportedly listed over 100 names including at least
10 other former and incumbent senators.
Unfortunately,
the case appears to be veering towards Filipino theater despite a year of
public outrage. Enrile, Revilla and Estrada are the first to be formally
charged. The three pointed out that of lawmakers named so far, all are
opposition members and none is an Aquino ally, making it questionable, they
say, whether political favoritism is playing a role.
Plunder
is supposedly a non-bailable offense. But whether the three are actually
incarcerated, even in a case this big, is problematical. Enrile, who is 90
years of age, told reporters last week that he had packed his bags and was
ready to go to jail. In the meantime, his lawyers were submitting a 51-page
brief requesting bail because of his age and alleged poor health.
Revilla
and Estrada said they were also ready to do time, then delivered farewell
speeches in the Senate. Revilla, like Estrada assumed to be a candidate for
higher office – even with the charges he faces – finished off his Senate career
with a five-minute video to dimmed chamber lights of him singing Salamat
Kaibigan, or “Thank you friends,” which has been running on YouTube ever
since.
Over
the weekend, a Malacañang spokesperson said the three can choose where they
will be detained, so long as permission is granted by the court. That probably
means soft jail time in some form of house arrest. When Jinggoy Estrada’s
father Joseph “Erap” Estrada was charged as President with plunder – like
father, like son – he spent most of his pretrial time in a luxury hospital
overlooking a golf course.
The
cases were filed on June 11 in the Sandiganbayan, a special court
designed to handle matters involving government officials that came into being
after the ouster of former strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. But unlike, say,
the Anti-Corruption Court in Indonesia, a no-nonsense judiciary which briskly
puts a large volume of politicians in real jails, the Sandiganbayan has been
overloaded and bogged down for decades. One study found that it takes seven
years to adjudicate a case.
The
scandal revolves around what was known as the Priority Development Assistance
Fund, established under another name in 1990 during the term of President Corazon
Aquino, the current president's mother. Its ostensible purpose was to allow
lawmakers to fund small-scale infrastructure or community projects in their
districts outside the scope of national projects. It has since become
universally known as the Pork Barrel.
Each
senator was to receive P200 million (US$4.52 million at current exchange
rates), and each congressman P70 million per year. But Lim Napoles, the
enterprising wife of a former Filipino Marine major who was part of a group of
anti-government rebel soldiers during Cory Aquino's term, allegedly established
a syndicate of fake non-government organizations through which lawmakers could
channel their pork barrel funds.
The
money could then find its way back into their personal accounts - with a certain
amount ending up in Napoles' handbag. She has since been singing to law
enforcement officers in excruciating detail about who got the money and where
it went, and how none of it was her fault.
Napoles
is said to have established as many as 20 such NGOs under her JLN Group,
funneling money from dozens of lawmakers, both senators and congressmen. But
Napoles wasn't alone. According to a devastating report by the government's
Commission on Audit released last July, the equivalent of US$141 million was disbursed
to questionable aid groups and ghost projects that were identified by lawmakers
as beneficiaries just between 2009 and 2012. According to some source, some
lawmakers were reaped as much as PHP500 million
Between
2010 and 2012, according to The Philippine Daily Inquirer, yet another P500
million went to fake NGOs through the state-owned Philippine Forest Corp., the
office of Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala and the National Agribusiness
Corp, and ended up in the bank accounts of some of the country's most prominent
lawmakers.
The
three lawmakers who have been charged “will be able to retain the best defense
attorneys in the country, and they are master manipulators of the laws that
they helped create,” according to a June 15 subscription-only report by Pacific
Strategies & Assessments, a Manila-based country risk firm. “More
importantly, they have deep political connections that can potentially
influence the outcome of the cases against them.”
Arrayed
against them, the ombudsman’s office is now headed by one of three powerful
women appointed by President Benigno S. Aquino III. She is Conchita Carpio
Morales, a former associate justice of the Philippine Supreme Court who was
appointed on July 26, 2011. She succeeded Merceditas Gutierrez, who was impeached
in March 2011 because she allegedly refused to prosecute corruption cases
related to administration officials of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who appointed
her to the position. Arroyo is now under detention for plunder as well.
While
the Ombudsman’s office theoretically fills the same role as Indonesia’s
Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, the office has never been truly
independent. The job is filled by politicians and, as Gutierrez can testify,
can be impeached by politicians. Morales, however, was well thought of in her
position on the country’s top court and some of Aquino’s other appointments,
including Maria Gracia Pulido Tan, the head of the commission on audit, and
Justice Secretary Leila M. De Lima are very highly thought of.
But
unlike the KPK in Indonesia, which since 2003 has investigated and prosecuted
86 bribery and graft cases in the anti-corruption court and secured a 100
percent conviction rate, going after increasingly bigger fish, only a handful
of mayors and lower level officials, with one high-profile exception – Erap
Estrada – have been charged and convicted by the ombudsman since the creation
of the position. Estrada spent most of his jail time in his capacious
house under house arrest, or hospitals for a variety of ailments, until Arroyo
pardoned him in 2007.
According
to a report by the Michelsen Institute, a research organization funded by
European governments, the ombudsman’s office is hampered by a lack of strong
investigative powers. It must rely on law enforcement agencies, some of them
corrupt as well, to gather evidence. Cases also were often not adequately
researched before they were brought to trial, the study found.
So
Conchita Morales is up against well-funded, canny suspects, with expensive,
well connected lawyers, with a staff that is not considered to be up to snuff,
in a country where impunity is the rule, and taking on a case so big that it
defies imagination. Wish her luck. Asia Sentinel
No comments:
Post a Comment