Saving Sabio

By Al S. Mendoza

FROM THE VERY start, I did not fully agree with the formation of the PCGG.

For one, the PCGG is an aberration because its establishment defeats the very purpose of the existence of government: Service to the people.  Creating an agency for that merely duplicates the government’s main job of performing good governance. Are we that desperate that we need another “government” to help the government perform its function well?

For another, the PCGG grabs a big chunk of the government budget to sustain what I consider basically as a useless existence.  Use that money to build barangay roads and farm produce will obliterate hunger in this country.

Tita Cory formed the PCGG (Presidential Commission on Good Government) just weeks after she became president in 1986.  It was primarily designed to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the  Marcoses during the martial law years from 1972-1986.  Jovito Salonga, the conscience of the people, was the PCGG’s first head.

  Maybe, the PCGG was a good idea in 1986 simply because capturing back the billions illegally stashed away by the Marcoses was top priority then.

To a certain extent, the PCGG, despite its name being basically a misnomer, had succeeded.  A portion of the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth is now in government hands.

 Just very recently, though, the PCGG is in the news.

No, it’s not because it had collared billions of Marcos money again from a Swiss bank. 

It’s because its chairman, Camilo Sabio, has been arrested and detained at the Senate. 

This came about when Sabio refused to attend a Senate hearing regarding PCGG matters.

Under the law, the Senate is empowered to arrest anyone refusing to honor an invitation from the Senate. 

As far as I know, this is the only invitation in the world that you cannot refuse – lest you want to be arrested and jailed like Sabio.

The Senate hearing on the PCGG was meant to determine if the law creating the PCGG needs to be repealed, thereby abolishing the PCGG.

In short, the Senate hearing wasbeing done in aid of legislation.

You don’t cooperate in the Senate’s wish to legislate a law, you could be in trouble – as in Sabio’s case.

Look, because of his incarceration, Sabio suffered from high blood pressure and needed hospitalization.

Why he refused to honor the Senate invitation is mind-boggling.

I say, if Sabio has nothing to hide, he should honor the invitation. His commission is for good government anyways. Does he feel the Senate is not for good government that’s why the snub?

Sabio said he should not have been arrested, claiming that government officials like him enjoy “absolute immunity” from apprehension.

Of course many of his government allies, chief among them the Palace rah-rah boys, came to his side.

But a lady justice said, “No one enjoys absolute immunity from arrests in this country. Not even a justice of the Supreme Court has that right.”

The only way Sabio can save himself is to appear in the Senate hearing. He doesn’t get jailed anyway by saying nothing in the Senate hearing.

In this country, you can aid the Senate legislate a law by keeping your mouth shut.

I guess nobody told Sabio that.

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