In a country mired in corruption the rule of law favors and protects the confederates of the kleptocracy and threatens those who oppose and stand against their supremacy.
The Senate investigation typifies this anomaly. When ret. Marine Msgt. Orly Guteza showed up in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and revealed under oath the revolting details how billions of pesos in taxpayers money purloined from ghost flood control projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways were delivered from the mansion of House of Representatives Appropriations Chairman Zaldy Co to the residence of then House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez at Forbes Park.
The public anticipated the Blue Ribbon Committee Chaired by Sen. Ping Lacson, will grill Romualdez over the “cash transfers” done three times weekly not in checks but in cold and crispy cash placed in several pieces of Rimuwa luggage. To the surprise and dismay of everyone however Lacson instead issued a threat to Guteza warning him a possible charges in court. In another surprise move Senate President Tito Sotto announced the suspension of the Senate investigation and no one knows whether or not they will resume their probe.
What goes on stirs suspicion that all these zarzuelas is nothing but a whiff cream that covers the scheme to exonerate the principal players in the grand larceny that bedevils the nation.
Romualdez had stepped down as Speaker House while Co had earlier sneaked out of the country carting along with him his precious belongings including a fleet of aircrafts. No one knew that the chief architect and builder of invisible flood mitigating projects has also a fetish for luxury cars and Gulfstream jets.
Guteza has not been heard of. Mayor Ben Magalong quit ICI. The Discaya couple had issued a statement that they will no longer cooperate with the Independent Commission on Infrastructure amidst talks that Martin Romualdez will be a state witness. In the meantime President Marcos named Crispin Remulla of the Department of Justice as Ombudsman.
The mechanisms are all set and the public is on the askance whether the objective is for conviction or for a whitewash. A hint can be gleaned from the statement of the ICI spokesperson. “NO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IMPLICATED YET IN FLOOD CONTROL ANOMALIES.”
In a deep ocean of corruption which Sec Vince Dizon described as “Gawa ng mga hayop” whose faces we have seen on TV and had confessed their mortal sins, here comes ICI telling us “As of now, we have not seen any official who may be charged”.
You do not need a state witness to identify the “mga hayop” that swindled people’s money in the government treasury.
