Behind 'closed doors' hide the rats

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/14/2011



Fidel V. Ramos speaks with a twisted tongue and heart; he would make the weak brave and heroic, and the self-sacrificing and courageous a villain. FVR is twisting certain quarters’ perception of events by hurling aspersions on those pursuing the truth in the Senate hearings on widespread corruption in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).

Some RAM (Reform the Armed Forces Movement) veterans, such as Col. Proceso Maligalig, even fault underclassman Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV for the suicide of Angelo Reyes, claiming that the senator’s alleged “shaming” of the late general did him in. But shouldn’t Reyes have spilled all the beans earlier to spare himself of any and all shame?

Why such crap coming from them? Are they fearful that their past relations to these “pabaon,” “pasalubong,” and “conversion” practices may be uncovered, as some retired officers credit this top Yellow general for the introduction of this corrupt system?

My previous column placed the onus of the systemic corruption within Philippine society and the AFP on both the ruling class and the principal foreign power. Through their financial, monetary, foreign, media and political policies, they set the parameters for this country’s governance and shape society in their perverted image.

Hence, an extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few powerful families (or oligarchs) tied to the foreign power’s coattails continues. Together, they systematically impoverish the nation by, first of all, ensuring that government institutions give out ridiculously low salaries to mendicant officials who will be perpetually addicted to graft and corruption as an “unofficial” means of attaining a modicum of fine living.

Because of this, officials from every branch of government have rackets to augment their ridiculously low incomes. Supreme Court justices, for example, are accused of raiding the Judiciary Development Fund (much like a former Chief Justice) or selling case decisions (often involving land disputes); while Comelec syndicates abound; and the Department of Budget and Management releases funds only after percentages are deducted, ad nausea.

The inquiries are best laid bare before the public than shoved back to the “Old Boys’ Club,” where that top Yellow general is said to be a major enabler. As a decorated AFP man and West Point grad, this noted trapo is credited with the issuance of “envelopes” during his days as a general while making camp visits and the proliferation of jueteng when he was still chief of the Philippine Constabulary.

The solons definitely knew about the pabaons long before, which we wrote about as early as 2005. Why then did it have to take a Heidi Mendoza, George Rabusa or Antonio Lim to be prodded by Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Trillanes to force the issue out?

Perhaps the silence and now apparent turnaround of some wimpy legislators in the conduct of these public investigations is that many of them are no different from these tainted AFP generals. After all, don’t most of them benefit from “pork barrel,” lobby money, as well as cash-for-privilege speeches cum exposés, and the like?

Those who can’t take the heat can kill themselves, but the truth must out. The overwhelming popular demand is for more open hearings, as the nation now has a rare, historic opportunity to flush out all the shame and to turn over a new leaf.

This popular sentiment is all over and here are parts of an e-mail circulating today that reads “Launch Non-Stop Campaign Against Corruption, Shame The Corrupt, Redeem Our Land,” by Mila D. Aguilar (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=501011960917&id=588112853):

“I am a jobless widow about to reach 62 years of age, and have nothing to lose but my life… Today, I am hearing calls to ‘moderate’ the investigations, turn the public hearings into closed-door ‘executive sessions,’ and generally, to ‘respect’ the ‘institution’ that is the AFP. I am also getting messages on FB trying to show how hopeless the situation is in many variegated ways. I smell a rat, and the rat is human. It infests not only the AFP, but ALL government offices, almost without exception. It has its tentacles in the private sector. And we all know it. But most of us think the only thing we can do is to do our own little good thing. Or in fact, not do anything at all. This despite the fact that we have already been gifted by God with a Heidi Mendoza and a General Rabusa. Can’t we see a candle — two candles — when they’ve already been lighted?... So in the light of recent developments… let me propose the following:

1. Do not ever consent to stopping the public, open-door hearings on corruption in the AFP, even if on the grounds that these are generated by politicians out for vengeance. It does not matter who or why…

2. What matters about the public open-door hearings is that the guilty are brought to shame, and the not-so-guilty are made to reflect on their own guilt.

3. Public hearings are our only way… to bring our nation to righteousness, by showing all and sundry what distinguishes right from wrong…

4. With our courts in disarray, shame is our only weapon now against misfits, so let us bring them to shame. With no viable legal means left at our disposal... we are constrained to use our culture of hiya, and use it to the hilt.

5. Let us bring the corrupt to shame through (various means)… Let us use our pens wisely…

6. Go to the streets, light a candle, hoot a horn, show that you are against corruption…

7. And most of all… Pray that the guilty will repent, and if they do not… That they will be punished, here and in the hereafter. Pray that the millions will wake up to righteousness… (and) For a final, absolute end to corruption.

Our call is: Oy kurap, tumigil ka! Tama na, sobra na!...”

And with it, I add: Expose the oligarchs, too! That will surely flush out the rats from our system.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The Roots of RP’s Systemic Corruption: The Oligarchy;” visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)