Sunday, November 2, 2008

Philippines: More on the Fertilizer Scam

This is from the Tribune (Manila).
Notice that it is now three years since the Ombudsman has had the first Senate report on the matter but she has yet to act on the recommendations. As the article suggests this may be because she is shielding Arroyo. It will be interesting to see if Joc-joc ever testifies before Senate or if he suddenly disappears again to end up in another foreign country!


Possible turning point vs evil
EDITORIAL

11/03/2008
Even before the Senate had succeded in bringing home former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante to give his side on the P720-million fertilizer fund scam, pieces of the putrid remains of the anomaly are starting to seep out.
It has been four years since the 2004 elections when the fund diversion allegedly happened benefiting the equally fraudulent victory of Gloria against then opposition candidate Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ).
The fund scam is the last of the residue of the several illegal measures undertaken by Gloria to steal the elections from FPJ, who was the obvious and clear winner of that election.
The orchestrated and systematic thwarting of the people’s will was all too evident in the “Hello Garci” controversy in which a taped conversion of former Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and Gloria showed how the Comelec was a major participant in the massive cheating campaign.
After four years, records at the provincial government of Nueva Vizcaya have provided evidence into the fund diversion, with P4.9 million worth of supposed farm inputs having been transferred a few days before the actual voting.
It was established during the past hearings of the Senate that the fertilizers distributed in 2004 under the Department of Agriculture program were either overpriced by 1000 percent or were, despite the overprice, not suitable for the intended farms for these.
Also, the Commission on Audit has disallowed the distribution of the farm inputs for violating the basic requirement of public bidding on such purchases.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano has indicated that it will be the Senate blue ribbon committee which will have to reopen the fertilizer scam probe since graft was already established during the past hearings conducted by the Senate committee on agriculture that had issued a report on it.
A blue ribbon investigation may give a new dimension into the controversy since the Senate body has a more encompassing reach than the previous committee, although it had competently undertaken its inquiry on the controversy.
The report of the Senate agriculture committee that stated, among others, that Bolante was the architect of the fund scam was submitted to the Ombudsman but until now, or three years after the report has been submitted, the anti-graft body has yet to act on the recommendations contained in the Senate report.
The case in Nueva Vizcaya showed clearly that the Ombudsman does not need eternity to “collate” the pieces of evidence to pin down Bolante and those higher ups in the government who had obviously ordered the fund diversion.
The Palace gave a new spin on shielding Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez from public criticism for its office’s lethargic response on the Bolante case. It said that it had taken the Ombudsman three years to sit on the case because of the absence of Bolante and now that he is in the country, the case filed against him is expected to proceed.
Bolante’s whereabouts in the United States where he was preposterously seeking asylum to escape the Senate probe was never a secret to MalacaƱang or the Ombudsman and a request for his repatriation would have not been impossible since the United States government has even considered Bolante a nuisance.
His counsels in the United States have been trying to depict Bolante as a champion of the rights of immigrants in the United States.
Yet no such request was made and it was even believed that Bolante’s legal assistance and his request for asylum were all well taken care of within the walls of the Palace.
The chance of Bolante turning out as a witness against the perpetrators of the fertilizer fund scam, who any Tom, Dick and Harry already know, is as remote as his demented asylum bid in the US, although a revived probe may induce more pieces of evidence to come out on the controversy.
As such, it will also reveal how truly incompetent Merceditas Gutierrez is in her current position as graft buster.
But was she supposed to have ever really been one when she was appointed by Gloria?

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