Thursday, February 14, 2008

"The Vice-President, for obvious reasons, has begun to grow a spine."

Heh.

Manuel Buencamino: The True Story

UPDATE: From the Malaya re the Ombudsman:

The Senate must stop its investigation be-cause Merceditas Gutierrez, the "see-no-corruption, hear-no-corruption" Ombudsman, suddenly woke up one day to find that the nation’s attention has been riveted for months on the scandalous overpricing of the proposed national broadband project?

The senators, excepting Miriam Defensor Santiago (who made the suggestion), Juan Ponce Enrile and Joker Arroyo, should be exchanging high fives for the unsolicited compliment. They had been patiently chipping at the whole edifice of lies erected around the corruption-laden deal. Now that the investigation is heading straight to the doors of the liars and the thieves, they are being asked to back off, to borrow a word that whistleblower Joey de Venecia used to describe how Jose Miguel Arroyo sought to persuade him to give way to former Election chair Benjamin Abalos who was already the designated, ahem, facilitator with the Chinese supplier firm ZTE Corp.

May we suggest that Sen. Alan Cayetano, chair of the lead committee Blue Ribbon, strike a deal with Gutierrez? The Senate and the Ombudsman have been proceeding on different paths in the campaign on corruption. They should formalize the division of labor, as it were, and make it official, to wit:

Gutierrez shall stick to running after clerks. The Office of the Ombudsman has been boasting of record number of cases investigated and of record number of convictions at the Sandiganbayan. She should stick to what she knows best.

The Senate shall focus on big-time corruption. Like the P720 million fertilizer scam pulled off by Agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante and the P1.2 billion rip off in the computerization program undertaken by the Commission on Elections during the time of – surprise! - Abalos with a Korean firm (why is it that foreign corporations are such an easy touch for "commissions"?)

Heh.

4 comments:

Deany Bocobo said...

John,

What has become institutionalized as an antidote to corruption is the Leftist Mass Action or Demonstration. That is the not so meagre accomplishment of folks like Satur Ocampo and Teddy Casino after twenty years of the most hypocritical parliamentary struggle in the long history of the communist movement.

But it is a real accomplishment at the expense of the INSTITUTION that ought to be the antidote to govt corruption: the Congressional inquiry!

Where lying ought to merit jail terms and to be summoned to one is to obey or else.

But no, what we have is PEOPLE POWER as the endpoint of what is fully provided for in Article XI of the Constitution in the Accountability of Public Officers.

CONGRESS not the cppnpandf is the right venue to fight corruption.

manuelbuencamino said...

Thanks for the mention, John,

john marzan said...

Dean,

We saw how well impeachment worked since 2001. We saw how credible our elections were in 2004 and 2007.

We need more of these congressional inquiries, but please don't tell the public, EVEN the lefties to stop protesting against the ARroyos.

And thank god for the Sisters no? At least they're not See no Evil types. But the problem is, mas mataas pa rin ang ranko ng mga priests and CBCP bishops...

john marzan said...

sorry for the late reply, for some reason, the email notification is not working.