Jun Lozada and the search for truth

All through out my years of study at the University of Sto. Tomas, I was taught that telling the truth was no extra-ordinary act and that it was something commonly expected of everyman. Yet today, people are rallying behind a fellow Thomasian and calling him a hero for telling 'the truth' about the National Broadband Network deal.

Veritas chooses no particular time and place, sir.

I don't believe Lozada should be called a hero or treated like one. If we should at all call him a hero, perhaps we can do so only in the limited literary sense of a lead character in a story about a people's search for justice against a corrupt regime. He is a hero, also, in a darker sense -- that of an immoral man who discovers his conscience while being in the middle of committing a crime.

He admits to acting as a broker between Abalos and De Venecia. As we all can assume, brokers earn money when deals come to fruition and Lozada had probably even offered his services to Neri in return for a commission -- not a balato, which in ordrinary words means a small sum of money voluntarily given to friends of one who may have earned a huge sum. When things got too hot, that was when he surfaced. (And he wouldn't have even surfaced if his name had not been leaked to the media, a ploy which some say was perpetrated by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.)

In any case, we need not listen to the NBN hearings at the Senate to find out the truth. The truth is already out for everybody to see.

Gloria and her men are robbing us blind. The people charged with prosecuting such offenses won't move against Gloria. The Supreme Court will not render a decision that in its mind would do harm to the state -- which currently refers to both the politician and not the office of the President. The Lower House has been bought by the devil and her minions. The Senate is inutile and powerless against the Executive, none of the resolutions that have come out of the termination of investigations has been followed.

And yet, there may be some hope as Salonga, the former Senate President during former President Cory Aquino's time, files a plunder case against Gloria. Perhaps, other men and women of every means can file similar cases against Gloria... If only to drive home the point that she must answer to the people.

Salonga files plunder case vs Arroyo
By Kristine L. Alave
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:59:00 02/28/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may be immune from court suit but that doesn’t mean she is beyond the reach of the law, former Senate President Jovito Salonga said after two civil society groups filed another complaint of graft and plunder against her at the Office of the Ombudsman Wednesday.

“The President can invoke immunity from suit but she has no immunity from investigation. [These are] two different things,” Salonga told reporters at the Kilosbayan headquarters in Mandaluyong City.

“Under the Constitution, any official can be sued in the Ombudsman. There is no immunity from the investigation of the Ombudsman,” he explained.

Kilosbayan and Bantay Katarungan, both founded by Salonga, filed the three-page complaint against Ms Arroyo for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, Anti-Plunder Law, and Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

The latest complaint is the eighth to be filed in the Ombudsman in connection with the corruption-tainted NBN contract and the second case naming Ms Arroyo as respondent.

In October last year, former Vice President Teofisto Guingona charged Ms Arroyo with “dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice” by signing the deal.

Salonga said the complaints against Ms Arroyo were “impeachable offenses” but that he was not expecting the administration-controlled House of Representatives to move against her.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: Resign or confess?

Between mounting calls for her resignation and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) late night call for her to let her officials spill the beans on corruption in her administration, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will perhaps do what she does best which is to IGNORE IT ALL.

Philippine Bishops Slam Corruption

By JIM GOMEZ – 9 hours ago

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Influential Philippine Roman Catholic bishops slammed endemic government corruption Tuesday but stopped short of urging President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to resign.

The statement by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, issued after a 10-hour emergency meeting, was a small victory for Arroyo's efforts to serve out the last two years of her term amid widespread calls for her to step down.

The bishops' group has played a key role in nonviolent revolts that ousted two leaders in the last two decades, and a strong statement against Arroyo could have bolstered protests against her.

"We strongly condemn the continuing culture of corruption from the top to the bottom of our social and political ladder," the bishops said in a pastoral statement.

"We must seek the truth and we must restore integrity. We are convinced that the search for truth in the midst of charges and allegations must be determined and relentless."

The statement urged Arroyo and her government to fight graft "wherever it is found" and for the president to rescind restrictions on officials testifying without her permission.

One journalist at the Senate pointed out that if Gloria didn't do anything about the IMPSA deal at the start of her assumption after President Joseph Estrada was ousted, what is to say that anyone in her Official Family will get prosecuted and convicted for graft and corruption?

One judges the character of a politician by referring to their actions in the past and Gloria's past goes all the way back to when her own father's (President Diosdado Macapagal) cabinet had been wracked by the Blue Book scandal. Journalists of that day exposed cabinet officials who were receiving bribes from a foreign owned company and before the truth could be known, before the Poor Boy from Lubao could be impeached, those involved in the bribery scandal were sent abroad. It is an old template for covering up corruption but one that sees its use again most especially with the case of Joc-Joc Bolante who is rumored to be still at large and hiding in the United States. At the height of one controversy among many controversies that persistenly hound him, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo was himself sent abroad. Consistently, Gloria's response to allegations of corruption is to hide them in other countries and the most recent example of this maneuver was Jun Lozada -- who had been sent to Hongkong just as news of his testimony at the Senate NBN deal hearings surfaced.

The sad and sorry fact about these current state of affairs is that graft and corruption in government will not stop with the ouster or resignation of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The President is the highest manifestation of our graft ridden and corruption blighted culture and if we want an end to graft and corruption, each one of us has to start with ourselves. After all, despite it being said that she cheated in the 2004 elections, no one really voted for the candidate with integrity and principles. People voted for the candidate who either had money or power or popularity. Ergo, Gloria and if Gloria lost in 2004, we would have had FPJ as President.

The much vaunted search for truth ends no further than from where you are standing right now. Corruption exists in the highest office of the land because Filipinos tolerate it as long as they can benefit from it.

Stop asking or accepting favors from politicians. Stop giving or accepting bribes. Start following rules, regulations, and laws, whether they are traffic rules or bidding rules. Pay the right taxes on every transaction you make. Start reporting and filing complaints against erring government officials and employees.

President GMA and First Gentleman got $5 million -- Madriaga

At the senate hearing on the NBN deal, Dante Madriaga, testified saying that the President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and First Gentleman Mike Arroyo received at least $5 Million dollars as an 'advance' on illicit commission on the NBN deal.

Madriaga is an electrical engineer and the so-called "head designer" of the Filipino group that came up with the project, is said to be the next witness to face the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee inquiry into the NBN scandal.