Sen. Bong Revilla’s accusations of unethical lobbying by President Benigno Aquino III for the conviction of then chief justice Renato Corona could not have been held on a bigger stage than the Senate session hall itself.
Complete with a toy truck carrying reams of documentary said to be evidence pointing to the President’s under-handed, supposedly impeachable actions, Revilla thundered and regaled the gallery with mixed parts of claims of innocence and denunciations of Palace persecution.
“Matamaan sana kayo ng kidlat (may you be struck by lightning)” or words to that effect were uttered with some finger pointing by the gentleman from Cavite province to his accusers in the Palace.
This is the fellow who was photographed several times with businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the center of the still unresolved pork barrel scandal.
The President was only too happy to answer the senator’s accusations of pork barrel misuse by pointing to several projects. Apparently the burden of proof lies squarely on the shoulders of Revilla and the rest of the senators identified with Napoles.
That little Senate episode however doesn’t mean the Aquino administration is lily-white when it comes to its own governance record. Stories about the so-called “rice smuggling king” David Tan who had Davao City and Cebu as his headquarters surfaced along with the failed attempts by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to find and prosecute him.
Tan’s smuggling activities may have led to former Customs commissioner Ruffy Biazon’s resignation and caused a shakeup in the Customs hierarchy since it’s hard to ignore billions of pesos of lost revenue.
While lobbying for a Corona conviction is not by itself illegal since the impeachment trial is more of a political process than a legal proceeding, the accusation that the senators were bribed with pork barrel money should be looked into.
The Aquino administration’s image of clean governance is marred not only by these accusations, speculative or circumstantial though it may be, but by its failure to go after the big fish who operate under the radar and have people in high places looking after them.
Yes, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Napoles are in detention. Those are powerful symbols by themselves that no one is above the law.
But there is more to sweep up as indicated by Napoles’ long track record of thievery along with the disclosure of Tan’s activities.
It’s the second half of President Aquino’s term. We hope he can go after and jail the sharks and their accomplices to spare the country’s treasury of any more pilfering.
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