Steal now, disappear later

From Lito Banayo:

Virgilio Garcillano, the phone pal of Doña Gloria who tells the nation, "I am sorry" she talked to him, quietly disappears from the scene. First he hies off to Tagaytay to cool his heels. There he has a rendezvous with a top Comelec official, mismo, who probably tells him to consult the public works secretary, a former top police official, to provide for his personal security.

The beleaguered Comelec commissioner flies to his beloved Cagayan de Oro and then motors to his farm in Bukidnon, again to cool his heels. Three days later, the public works secretary flies to the City of Golden Friendship and that same afternoon, Garcillano leaves Lumbia Airport via a chartered Subic Air jet that eventually lands in Clark, far from prying eyes and nosey newsmen. That was June 18, 2005, twelve days since Malacañang, through its presidential spokesperson, mismo, explodes the bunyeta of garcification that involves no less than Glorietta, misma.

The Philippines has never been the same since then.

Congress and media have been looking for Garci since, but neither the ISAFP, nor NICA, nor the PNP, nor the NBI could provide any answers. Easier to kill Abu Sabaya, or hunt down terrorist bombers than to locate a Comelec commissioner. Then, sometime in August, ANC senior reporter Ricky Carandang, through his sources, tells the nation that Garcillano left the country on July 14 via a Subic Air Learjet, which landed at Seletar airfield in Singapore. From there, he boarded a plane to London, perhaps to visit the genuine Queen.

Congress was riled, and called the Immigration office to explain. The immigration officials were clueless. Everybody denied they knew anything about Garci.

Later, the chair of five committees of the House looking for Garci to testify on Hello Garci, got an official confirmation that what Carandang reported was indeed true. Again, denials of any complicity, from BID to DFA to the NBI and the police. Garci simply flew the coop, and Bunye lamely explains that since he is now a private person, and there is no formal case in court filed against him, then there is absolutely nothing the Dona’s government can do about it. Bunyeta!

It is now almost five months since Garci’s voice on the tapes was exposed by Malacañang to the entire nation. He was caught on tape talking about kidnapping a woman election officer, in order to ensure the Doña got the votes she wanted and he promised. He was caught talking to the Dona, misma, not once, not twice, but as many as fifteen times over a short period of time. Talking about a million-vote margin, about missing ballot boxes, about generals in the know and on the cheating loop, even about "dagdag…yung dagdag". And nobody in this God-awful nation can tell 84 million God-forsaken souls where the hell Garci is, dead or alive. Bunyeta talaga!

***

A man named Joc Joc, whom the Doña appointed the most powerful agriculture undersecretary ever, converts a budgeted 729 million pesos of liquid fertilizer, at least as discovered, into cash for electoral use, by a feat of financial legerdemain that would put another Garci, Carlos F. Garcia, major general in the armed services, to shame. He does this with his immediate boss, then Agriculture Secretary Luis "Cito" Lorenzo, either closing his eyes to the shenanigan, or was duped by his underling the sneaky Joc Joc. Such a "bolantic" caper.

During the elections, the opposition already blew the whistle on the bolantic fastbreak of public funds, but nobody listened. A few months after Hello Garci brought the elections of 2004 back into focus, the Senate investigates the bolantic undertaking. By now, of course, both Bolante and his secretary, Cito, have left government service. Both have returned to the private sector, and in the case of JocJoc, has become an officer of Rotary International, that world-wide organization of men and women whose first test of uprightness is to ask themselves whether they speak and act the truth. Rotary, of course, has been quite fortuitous in the life of Joc Joc. It was through Rotary in Makati that he met the man who was to become the second most powerful man in all of the islands, el esposo mismo de Doña Gloria misma.

The Senate invited them to shed light on the matter. But before that, Doña Gloria forbids anybody in the executive branch to ever dignify any investigation called by Congress, without her express permission.

This effectively castrated Congress, defied the constitutional principle of checks and balances, and insured that all truth would remain under her cover. But Joc-joc and Cito are now private citizens, no longer covered by her EO 464.

So what to do? Why, fly out to unknown hide-outs, just like Garci. When things get garcified, it’s time to turn bolantic, ne c’est pas?

And so on the day Bolante and Lorenzo were to appear before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, they surreptitiously left through the NAIA. Without a hold-order issued by the courts, without any look-out by immigration officials, without even a by-your-leave, they simply vanish.

Asked to explain, the presidential spokesperson simply shrugs his shoulders and says he is not his brother’s keeper. They have left the warm embrace of the brotherhood of the Dona’s faithful, and are now private citizens, so don’t look at us in the palace, says the spokesperson.

There is an amoral lesson here to be learned. Steal now, fly later. Just do as the Doña bids, the Doña wants, the Doña expects of you as a public official completely devoted to her and her ministrations.

Never mind if in so doing, you have to steal, cheat or lie. Anyway, she will protect you through EO 464, which tells you to speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil, about her, her family, her government, and most of all, her election to office.

And if perchance the noose gets too close when you’re no longer in government service, not to worry. Just fly, be gone, disappear, and that’s the end of your woes. Just make sure you made enough of a pile when you were in her glorific service. Make sure you made subi for yourself. Baka naman lahat na hinatag mo sa kanila? How else could you fend for yourself in Los Angeles, or San Francisco, London, Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, or heaven forbid, even in Labuan in the wilds of North Borneo? Of course, if you’re now somewhere 20,000 leagues under the surface of the Celebes, what would you need the kickbacks and commissions for? Ah! The Palace backs legislated wage hike of the deep, no matter how garcified the truth could be.

Life in these islands Philippine, in the reign of criminals who steal and fly, cheaters who garcify and fly after saying sorry, and liars who keep hiding the truth. And if one may add, bishops and religious leaders who have their standards of morality selective, their concept of the moral and immoral all confused. Woe unto us all.