The malversation of JDF funds and the Impeachment of Hilario Davide, PART 3

There were six Congressmen who chickened out and withdrew their signatures from the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Hilario Davide. These Congressmen gave various reasons for their 180-degree turn, but I noticed that NONE of them cited "lack of basis" on the impeachment complaint as a reason.

One said he was put off by talks of a settlement, while another belatedly saw alleged collusion between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and business magnate Eduardo Cojuangco, founder of the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) party whose members led efforts to pass the complaint.
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Biazon, who was the 76th signatory to the complaint, called up the Inquirer to say that he withdrew his signature from the complaint to prove that he did not receive five million pesos as some had alleged. (That's a SORRY-ASS excuse for withdrawing, BIAZON! WHAT AN IDIOT!)

Reports had circulated that congressmen who signed the impeachment complaint received five million pesos each from Cojuangco, who is chief executive officer of the beverage and food conglomerate San Miguel Corp.

Biazon explained he was disappointed with an announcement of NPC leader Representative Gilbert Teodoro that a settlement of the case was in the offing.

Biazon said he believed there was a basis to pursue the impeachment when the complaint was presented to him by Representatives Felix William Fuentebella and Mark Cojuangco.

Kaya raw siya nag-withdraw ay dahil ayaw niyang masabihan na bayaran siya, LOL!

And here's the explanation 2 left-leaning, pro-poor party-list members for taking back their support for the Impeachment complaint:

The two party-list congressmen said they withdrew their signatures after they consulted with coconut farmers and their constituents.

In separate statements, both Bautista and Magtubo justified their earlier endorsement of the complaint, saying it was meant to protect and advance the rights and welfare of the employees of the judiciary.

Magtubo said: "However, events have unfolded such that the impeachment case against Davide is not anymore merely legal but is now highly political. The merits of the case on the disbursement of JDF funds have been overshadowed by factional infighting among the elite."

Bautista said that he continued to believe that Davide must be held to account for the use of the Judiciary Development Fund but he was "constrained" to withdraw his signature.

They said the "politicization" of the impeachment process made them decide to withdraw, but they still believe that Hilario "P120,000/chair" Davide shouldn't be left off the hook that easily.

SANLAKAS, a militant, leftist group, which counts Rep. JV Bautista as one of it's members, were very supportive of the court employees fight against Davide on the JDF issue.

With some congressmen backtracking from the impeachment raps against the chief justice, court employees must persevere and pursue the fight," a militant labor group, Sanlakas, urged also yesterday.

Ironically, Sanlakas representative in Congress, JV Bautista, was one of the first to withdraw his endorsement.

Wilson Fortaleza, president of Sanlakas, said the court employees must pursue the fight for their rightful claim to the JDF should the impeachment proceeding not succeed.

"The court employees are in the best position to pursue this fight independently, specially now that the impeachment process has been reduced to a bitter infighting between factions of the elite and the major branches of government," Fortaleza noted.

He stressed that "without the court employees leading their independent struggle on the issue, their legitimate claim to the JDF will be obscured if not completely eclipsed by the far bigger and rousing issues of the constitutional crisis and factional infighting between the elite."

In short, these leftists may not like Cojuangco, but they still believe Davide screwed the poor court employees out of their allowances and benefits.

This impeachment issue is also beginning to look more and more like a fight between the Edsa Dos "Civil Society" elites supporting Davide and the poor and underpaid 25,000 court employees (w/ their families) all over the country.



The "civil" society elites want to maintain status quo and defend their edsa dos icon, Hilario "P120,000/chair" Davide, and the court employees are wondering why their differential allowances, which used to be around P9,000.00 pesos had dropped to only P2,500.00 to P1,800.00 during the time of Davide.

Here's more from a municipal court clerk:

Nene Rafael, municipal court clerk and vice president for Metro Manila of the Philippine Association of Court Employees, confirmed that employees are “surviving on starvation wages... If not for instant noodles, the court system would have long collapsed because that is the only food we can afford on our salaries.”

“We have many employees [with] a take-home pay of P3,000 a month. If you are the breadwinner, how can your family survive on a P100 a day?” she asked.

Asked to comment on the alleged expensive curtains and chairs for the justices bought with the JDF, Rafael could only shake her head. She said that in their office, she uses a hand-me-down chair. “I bought some nails and glue to fix it.”

It's really outrageous that Mr. Davide and his son Bryan Hilary had no problems spending P120,000 for clerical chairs, luxury retirement mansions and luxury cars, because that kind of excessive spending used up most of the remaining JDF funds specifically allocated for the court employees.