A Trojan horse

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/7/2011



Ten years ago, a professional civil servant from the Commission on Audit (CoA) named Agustin Chan was in the thick of investigating a P224-million anomaly in a special fund earmarked for the tobacco industry. The trail that led to the northern provinces became his basis for issuing “tracers” or demands for government officials who were directly responsible to answer his queries.

In particular, he wrote the Ilocos Sur provincial accountant on Sept. 4, 2001 for a listing of expenditures charged against the fund for that year, as provided for by Republic Act 7171. But even before that, he already raised the matter in April 2001 to the governor of the province who usually got the biggest allocation, Chavit Singson, to liquidate P124 million in accumulated cash advances or be made liable for “malversation of public funds.”

Six months later, CoA auditor Chan and his driver Alex Recacho were ambushed and killed along the national highway, in Sitio Baoay, Barangay Paing, Bantay, Ilocos Sur. Neither the Yellows, in “civil society” or academe, nor the institutional Catholic Church ever let off a squeak to denounce these twin murders.

Fast forward 10 years: March 3, 2011, Ateneo de Manila. A religious mass cum candle-lighting ceremony was held at the Church of the Gesù with white robed participants and melodramatic chorale evoking a sanctified (or sanctimonious) air to honor “whistle-blower” Heidi Mendoza who testified on the massive corruption in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).

Since her testimony a few weeks ago, a teleserye-like atmosphere has unfolded, with heart-wrenching cries and spiels (a la ZTE-NBN crybaby Jun Lozada), along with nuns and priests “securing” her, a dramatic backstory of her resigning from a “corrupt government,” peppered with “public clamor” for her to return because “her children asked her to,” and then, an offer of the CoA chairmanship from the President, to which Mendoza was quoted to have said, “I won’t give him a hard time (convincing me).” Wow naman, how cute!

Yet what is the reason for this blatant double standard in civil society’s treatment of one CoA auditor over another? Here, I am not only comparing the Jesuit institution’s treatment of Agustin Chan to their darling today but to many others also killed in the line of duty, such as State Auditor IV Anita Gallito, head of the CoA Unit at the Education Department’s Division Office in Tandag, Surigao del Sur, who was gunned down in front of her home in Tago town.

These killings of Chan and Gallito shocked the audit community; but there never was a quip from “civil society.” Neither has the Ateneo nor its affiliates, such as its School of Government, given due credit to those who first raised and exposed the AFP corruption issue and started it all — the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalos). Why is it that all the accolades seem reserved only for the Ateneo and civil society’s “darling?”

Weeks before the “Mendoza-as-CoA chairman” drama aired, our “investigator” Oliver already alerted us to the “plot” to appoint Mendoza. At the time, no one had the dimmest idea of that yet, as media were not even aware of the then CoA Chairman Reynaldo Villar’s avowed legal battle to stay on in his post.

Oliver attributed the push for Heidi Mendoza’s elevation to the “usual forces that wish to privatize government functions,” i.e. the same people who pushed for Swiss firm SGS to take over Customs functions and for Vitaliano Nañagas to be appointed as chairman of the Social Security System (SSS) in 2001 to privatize the fund, only to be deposed by SSS employees. He then cited the grapevine’s report of a foreign private company expected to be subcontracted for CoA’s financial audit functions in the event of a Mendoza appointment.

I remained skeptical until I heard American gofer Harvey Keh of the Ateneo School of Government at the Ciudad Fernandina Kapihan, floating Mendoza’s name for the chairmanship of the CoA. Coming from Keh, who represents an institution that has spawned quite a number of apologists for the likes of CodeNGO, this is another sure sign of foreign interests at play.

Make no mistake: Heidi Mendoza is an asset from SGV, a breeding ground of corporate operators such as the Hyatt 10’s Cesar Purisima (who wants to restore SGS to Customs). And just as it was for Cory Aquino since Edsa I, Gloria Arroyo in 2001, and now, Aquino III, Heidi is being made out to be another “gift from God” by the Yellows.

However, 25 years of Cory’s legacy and 200 days of Aquino III have only shown that “gifts from God” do not necessarily deliver heaven on earth. There have been and there are many more heroic public servants whom the Ateneo, the Jesuits, the nuns, and civil society have inequitably and inexplicably never sought to give due respect to, and more whistle-blowers than they have ever reached out to help, such as the late Sammy Ong (who exposed Hello Garci), anti-jueteng witness Sandra Cam, along with Jose Barredo and Dante Madriaga of the fertilizer fund and ZTE-NBN scams, respectively.

Given the record of these Yellows and their patrons in giving the Filipino nation such “gifts from God,” we should henceforth be wary of another one. After all the hype surrounding the conferment of “sainthood” to the Yellows’ icon, the Filipino people are almost certain to open the gates of their hearts again — this time, to another Trojan horse — only to regret it a little too late.

(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 “Cuba, Venezuela on the Libyan Crisis” with Ambassadors Juan Carlos Arencibia and Manuel Perez Iturbe; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our select radio and GNN shows)