Malacañang and the US Embassy recently launched with much fanfare an anti-corruption program funded by a US grant of $25 million (P1.2 billion) and a local counterpart of P1 billion.
The program seeks to strengthen the investigative and prosecution capability of the Office of the Ombudsman and the anti-graft campaign of the bureaus of internal revenue and customs. The small fry, we suppose, should start running for cover; for the big fish, it’s business as usual.
Let’s leave aside the internal revenue bureau. There has been no big-time scandal in its backyard for sometime.
At the piers, it’s no secret who the smugglers are. The identity of their protector is no secret either. Throwing money into the anti-graft program of Customs will not curb smuggling while the Big Padrino continues to exert influence at the highest level of government.
The Office of the Ombudsman has become a joke after Merceditas Gutierrez, a classmate of Mike Arroyo, succeeded Simeon Marcelo. How many big-time corruption cases have been sleeping the sleep of the dead on the desk of Gutierrez?
There’s the case against former Justice Secretary Hernani Perez who allegedly received $10 million in payoff for awarding a sovereign guarantee to an Argentine company which rehabilitated the Kalayaan power plant in Laguna. The Swiss government has provided Manila information on funds that allegedly ended up in the bank accounts of Perez and his wife.
The case against Comelec officials over the election modernization scam was recently completed by Gutierrez’ office. The surprise was that the findings of investigators were overturned by Gutierrez, leaving only Resurreccion Borra among the commissioners to face the music.
On the fertilizer fund scam, the Ombudsman has yet to take action despite the mass of testimonial and documentary evidence transmitted by the Senate committee on agriculture and the Blue Ribbon. Perhaps the Ombudsman is on the verge of filing charges. Which raises the suspicion that the scam mastermind, former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante, was tipped off, the reason he is now seeking political asylum in the United States.
And speaking of the United States, why is it not leaning hard on Bolante to come clean on the fertilizer fund scam which involved portions of US aid?
The suspicion is that the US government is a party to Palace efforts to find a place for Bolante where he will be beyond the reach of Senate investigators by canceling his visa and arresting him in California for violation of immigration laws.
We are being treated to US-funded smoke and mirrors while the big fish are laughing all the way to the bank.
Related: The US is making a big mistake by propping up the Arroyo Regime.
UPDATE: More from the Tribune Editorial:
As for those Gloria allies who have been exposed as having committed crimes, and with the hard evidence to convict them, no agency — including the so-called constitutional offices such as the Ombudsman — moves against these allies.
Think fertilizer funds that have been plundered, with the money going to the various congressmen and local executives and with the big bulk going into the campaign coffers of Gloria for the 2004 polls.
Did the Ombudsman, on her own, move against Joc-Joc Bolante, especially as this fertilizer scam was already exposed years earlier by a journalist who was executed for being too nosy?
To this day, all the Ombudsman says is that the fertilizer fund scam is still being investigated and that the probe should not be rushed.
Merceditas Gutierrez isn’t rushing the other cases either, such as the case of extortion, money laundering and plunder in relation to former Justice chief Hernando “Nani” Perez even when she has hard evidence with her.
But when it comes to Gloria’s political foes, it is a different treatment altogether. All laws are broken to ensure that they would be arrested without warrant, detained and in some cases, charged even when there is no evidence to make the charges stick.
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