Punchline
Toasting Mr. Avenger and Mr. Spademan
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
The man of the hour inside Dagupan City government is City legal officer George Mejia.
He is now in the thick of investigating the controversial acquisitions of the previous Lim administration, stumbling upon the deception and the conspiracy that accompanied those deals. At the rate he is going, he is finding himself in an enviable position to leave a legacy in the city that will make his family proud.
So far, he has called a spade a spade, endearing him to people who demand full accountability and transparency from our public officials.
If he thinks he already has the evidence to point to the conspiracy to defraud the city government, I pray he will not hesitate to file the complaints before the Ombudsman and compel at least former City Mayor Benjie Lim and his administrator Raffy Baraan (now the provincial administrator) to account for their official acts.
Shall we call him “Mr. Spademan”?
***
But, of course, he gets his marching orders from his superior. And the man quietly laboring to ferret out the truth is City Administrator Alvin Fernandez.
Alvin was the city’s vice mayor in the past administration who on many occasions found himself trapped to do the bidding of Lim. I had criticized Alvin in the past when I thought he did not have the gumption to stand up for what he thought was right.
Well, vindication time is here. He finally succeeded in stopping the MetroState construction, a project that he knew was tainted with irregularities; and now en route to establishing the true status of the MC Adore Hotel and the 30 hectare land in Barangay Awai in San Jacinto.
Let’s call him “Mr. Avenger”.
This corner toasts the two gentlemen for now. I pray they don’t lose steam and the political will to set things right in the city once and for all.
***
THE BIG 3 X’S FINGERPRINTS. The officials of the previous Lim administration certainly have a lot of explaining to do.
The fingerprints of the city’s Big 3 X, namely, ex-mayor Benjie Lim, ex-city administrator Raffy Baraan and ex-councilor Teofilo Guadiz III are all over the MetroState project, the MC Adore acquisition and the Awai land scam.
Speaking of former chief onor-onor Guadiz, he is reportedly the new assistant secretary at the Department of Transportation and Communication, the lead implementing agency for the stinking ZTE-NBN deal. Could it be that the city succeeded in exporting the legal brain that made the Awai, MetroState and MC Adore deals possible? Just wondering.
I also wonder what’s in store for the provincial government now that my good friend Raffy is administering the province’s business affairs, fresh from the Dagupan scandalous deals.
***
EWD FOR CORRUPTION. The discovery of a possible loss of the Dagupan City government of P50 M to the MC Adore deal, and P16 M to the Awai land scam hardly surprised me.
The efforts of the Big 3 X to keep everyone in the city in the dark by ‘silencing’ pesky media practitioners, particularly in the Awai land deal, was one of our early warning devices. (Unknown to many, a juicy offer was made to one of our senior PUNCH staffers to desert me and to join the ranks of happier “journalists” in their pockets. To the chagrin of the bribers, our staffer stayed on and the exclusive reports continued).
My other EWD was our earlier finding that the ‘Mr. Jose Mariano Cuna’, the surprise owner of the land, simply didn’t have the means to speculate on real estate deals; and secondly, that he was a protegee of my then favorite mayor.
Anything that stinks will forever stink in the face of truth.
***
POLITICAL JUSTICE’S TRIUMPH. The conviction of former President Erap Estrada could hardly be considered a triumph of justice. Not when a big number of trial and litigation lawyers across the country claim they could not find the jurisprudence that would sustain the decision of the Sandiganbayan finding Erap guilty.
But what these lawyers are certain about is that Erap was guilty as hell for accepting jueteng payola and laundering the dirty money. But for plunder?
“Naw, not a chance,” said one lawyer who has even seen fit to advise his son to forget about going to law school after the Erap conviction. “That decision practically threw away the country’s jurisprudence to the dogs that it makes me wonder whether our laws can now be used whimsically for political reasons,” he snarled.
Indeed, since when did jueteng become part of the government’s source of revenues?
At least we know now that in “political justice”, everything is possible!
***
THE KRUSADA WON! What is unmistakably clear though is that the Erap conviction was a triumph for the Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Jueteng (People’s Crusade Against Jueteng).
Take a bow, Archbishop Oscar Cruz!
The case before the Sandiganbayan was in fact a surrogate complaint for the Krusada. But the decision finding Erap guilty would have been more meaningful for the anti- jueteng campaign if Erap was found guilty of corruption, bribery and conspiracy to launder illegally-sourced funds, not for plunder!
Nonetheless, the Sandiganbayan decision says accepting jueteng payola is a case for plunder!
Applying the jurisprudence, the Krusada can now begin documenting and trailing the flow of funds from known jueteng operators to every governor, mayor, police general and chief of police, board member, councilor, etc. and book them all for plunder! Like Erap, these corrupt officials now risk being stowed away for life, ruing the day they decided to ignore Archbishop Cruz’s appeal for them to reform.
But what I found dumbfounding about the Erap decision, that which could get in the way of the Krusada’s campaign, was the acquittal of Messers. Ed Serapio and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. They were not found guilty for allegedly conspiring to extort, collect and launder jueteng payola.
That decision bodes well for our friends in the media who are in the jueteng operators’ monthly payola payroll. They will never be jailed for conspiracy, protecting the business of jueteng by playing the perfect mute, deaf and dumb, as they keep the mighty “golden pen” in their pockets! How lucky can they get!
Anyway, the bottomline is, the good triumphed over evil. Our revered Archbishop Cruz won a big round in his crusade albeit at the expense of the country’s jurisprudence! That’s good enough for me!
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/)
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
