Is P25 million big enough or too small to persuade someone to consider making some life-changing decisions – which may either be right but costly, or just downright illegal and immoral?
At the height of the NBN-ZTE broadband deal controversy involving former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, former socio-economic planning secretary Romulo Neri admitted that former senator Panfilo Lacson and some moneyed allies approached and asked him to spill the beans on the role of Arroyo’s husband Mike and by extension, the president’s role in the scandal.
This was after Neri made the now infamous allegation that former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos told him that “may P200 million ka dito (You have P200 million here)” if he agreed to support the NBN-ZTE deal over the proposal made by the son of then House Speaker Jose de Venecia.
Neri claimed that Lacson and his allies offered him P25 million to disclose everything he knows about the deal. “I think P25 million may make my life comfortable for a few years but that’s it,” or so Neri told reporters then.
Neri was eventually convicted of simple misconduct by the Court of Appeals in the NBN-ZTE deal, an administrative offense that critics would consider merely a slap on the wrist.
Just recently, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV claimed that two Court of Appeals (CA) justices were offered P50 million or P25 million each to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the six-month suspension order served on Makati City
Mayor Erwin “Junjun” Binay, son of Vice President Jejomar Binay.
Whether the CA was right or wrong in issuing the TRO mattered less when compared to growing public perception that court-issued TROs have become an emergency tool of elective officials to stave off suspension, which would have rendered them inutile and powerless for an average of six months.
These officials don’t even require a CA TRO to stave off suspension which is usually preventive in nature so they can’t interfere or intimidate people during an investigation.
Immune from suit as a senator, Trillanes can say whatever he wants and make any charge in public without the benefit of hard, foolproof evidence.
His allegations are serious and further fuel public mistrust in the judiciary as wellas elected officials.
While instituting reforms to speed up the resolution of cases and bring justice to the downtrodden, the Supreme Court should take into consideration the senator’s allegations and make sure that their ranks are not beholden to people in power who can offer P25 million or other favors in exchange for a TRO.
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