Aside from our inability, as a people, to sustain our anger, and our poor collective memory, we have one more trait that keeps us from exacting full retribution from public officials who have done us wrong. Awa. Pity. Compassion.
That’s probably one of the qualities that make Filipinos so lovable. And why assorted hustlers, scam artists and thieves in high places have taken advantage of us and exploited us through the years.
Small wonder, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, accused of plunder and other crimes, continues to be under “hospitable arrest” and why the wheelchair invariably makes an appearance every time someone important, in business or politics, is threatened with imprisonment. Nakakaawa naman.
The 10-billion peso pork barrel scam, as stunning as it may be, is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg in our country’s dark history of official pillage and plunder. Thus, how this case is handled and adjudicated will be the acid test for the government of Benigno S. Aquino III.
It will also test the Filipino people’s capacity for outrage.
Without passing judgment on Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, as well as Janet Lim Napoles and the others who have been included in the indictment, I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is: “How determined is the Aquino government to see that justice is done, and will it be regardless of whose heads will roll?”
Another question, in view of a justice system notorious for glacial speed and for near-permanent temporary restraining orders, is: “How speedily and how far will the wheels of justice turn?”
Frankly, our government’s track record has not been impressive. Even the way the Department of Justice and the NBI have handled the pork barrel scam, as zealous as they may appear, has left much to be desired.
In the first place, the press – specifically the investigative team of Philippine Daily Inquirer – did a better job of tracking down leads. In the second place, the suspects were given so much time to get rid of incriminating stuff, if it had been a race, it was like giving them a one day head start. It isn’t funny that the office shredder of Napoles reportedly broke down from overuse.
I’ve pointed out a number of times that, if this case had exploded in the US, the FBI would have immediately raided the offices of the suspects, padlocked their files, carted off their computers and frozen their bank accounts.
In early 2011, I wrote about how the City of Bell, a working class suburb of Los Angeles, handled a case of corruption involving several city officials. Mayor Oscar Hernandez and former City Manager Robert Rizzo were arrested in morning raids on their homes, handcuffed and thrown in jail, along with Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo, Council members George Mirabal and Luis Artiga, former Council Member Victor Bello and former Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia.
Their crime? Helping themselves to the city’s meager treasury and paying themselves salaries and benefits totaling more than $5.5 million.
And how have the Chinese handled cases of corruption? In 1995, the wife of a governor of Guizhou Province was executed for embezzling thousands in public funds. On the way to the execution, she was paraded through the streets, shackled to the back of a truck.
Between 2000 and 2005, some 25 Chinese government officials were sentenced to death for accepting bribes. In March 2000, a former deputy governor was executed after accepting bribes worth more than $600,000. In August 2000, a former vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress was executed for taking $4.9 million in bribes for awarding contracts and arranging sweetheart real estate deals. Some of those who were executed were paraded, with signs hanging from their necks reading, “Corrupt and Degenerate.”
According to the Chinese government, the harsh punishment was designed to send a sharp lesson to other corrupt officials. They called it, “Slaughtering the chicken to warn the monkey.”
Is the Aquino government capable of slaughtering the pigs to warn the snakes? Or will he and other officials allow pity and compassion to foil the ends of justice?
Perhaps it will help them appreciate the gravity of the billion-peso pork barrel plunder in the context of the plight of the poor who survive on pagpag.
Pagpag, for those who are fortunate enough to be able to afford a meal at Jollibee or McDonald’s refers to the way left-over food, dumped in the trash by restaurants, are retrieved by the poor (along with other garbage), dusted of their crumbs and other inedible items (pina-pagpagan), washed and then re-cooked and eaten.
I happened to watch an ABS-CBN report on pagpag while having breakfast at home. I felt sick and couldn’t continue eating. It could have been a sense of guilt, living as I do in the US, where food is plentiful and so much of it is mindlessly discarded.
Disturbed, I decided to look for other materials on pagpag and found the GMA special report on YouTube. It showed, among others, a baby feeding on a piece of chicken that, in a previous existence, had obviously been left on a plate by a satiated fast food customer, wiped off the table and into a garbage bag, deposited in the trash and, subsequently, reincarnated as a poor family’s adobo.
Indeed, our government is lucky that the Filipino’s capacity for suffering is almost limitless. The GMA report depicted people actually enjoying their “recycled” food, rationalizing that they, at least, had a free and limitless source and that the pagpag dishes were keeping them from starving.
Perhaps, if PNoy were to watch the special GMA and ABS-CBN reports, his stomach would turn and he would resolve to punish the plunderers to the full extent of the law, short of parading them through town and lining them up before a firing squad.
Come to think of it, it would be a good idea to show both the reports to the well-fed members of the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as conniving officials of the Department of Budget Management and the Commission on Audit.
Hopefully, they will become nauseated enough to throw up, assuming that only their appetite and not their conscience will be affected.
At any rate, let’s see what happens after the first salvo, meaning, the indictment of the first batch of pork barrel suspects. Let’s pray that justice is done because, frankly, if what results has any similarity to the continued prominence and dominance of the Marcos and Estrada families in Philippine politics, we might as well just join the fun.
Hey, if you can make billions by conjuring a fake NGO and you can get away with it, why not?
That’s certainly better than dining on pagpag.
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