LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

Rid government of thieves, liars, cheats and chicken dung promoters
MARCH L. FIANZA

These personalities hold similar traits. Many of them survive because they serve their bosses well to the extent of helping them hurdle the political crisis. Then slowly, their personalities form in the shadows as they scamper to deny involvement in the ZTE scandal and alleged kidnapping of a witness.

Body language gave them in. Some of the resource speakers came to the Senate on their own free will, deliberately forgetting about EO464. But while doing so, they unwittingly revealed their character. And the investigation on the bribe scandal worth $130-million thickened as the senators faced their guests. As of late, a new witness said $41 million dollars overprice for the NBN project was advanced by the ZTE in three slices – $1M, $10M and $30M.

As the truth and the lies were thrown around in the Senate hearing, more questions seemed to emerge even faster than answers were found. By the way, the guests were not the only who ones who bared their true color. The hearing panel composed of senators was biased too.

However, there was a difference. The Senate hearing revealed that many of them were biased for the Senate and for the truth to come out, while a few were biased for the palace. It was very glaring that some senators were “lawyering” for their patrons in the executive branch.

We noticed that the Senate inquiry is about to get sucked in a whirlpool as the number of people being pulled into the hearing increases. The one-too-many Malacanang spokesmen say that the hearing will not end sooner and further articulate that the best venue for resolving the scandal is at the Ombudsman or the Dept of Justice Gonzalez.

On the other hand, a silent majority says the Ombudsman and the DOJ may not be the proper bodies to investigate the alleged multi-million dollar scandal as this would be comparable to two captive boys sorting out the dirty litter of their sinful bosses. That, they can not possibly do.

So they wash the dirt away. Still, the bad stink stays. The scandal is unresolved and no one goes to jail. A few corrupt men laugh their way to the banks, the sitting president continues to reign and the political crisis lingers on. What is clear is that the nation arrives at nothing after all the attempts in the Senate to uncover sins or after all the efforts by the executive branches to cover up the same.

The stage for the unfolding drama about the $329-million National Broadband Network deal was easily filled by these personalities. Though not all of the actors were of the cheating kind nor were they chicken dung dealers with their promoters, the public saw many of them as thieves and liars under oath.

That was nothing new as Susan Roces, the wife of the late presidential bet FPJ, had said it in public many times over that “ang sinungaling ay kapatid ng magnanakaw!” To add to that, I remember the story about the Japanese who said: “Piripinos are very rocky (lucky) because they have a president who robs (loves) them very much!” We do not have to go so far in the Senate or the palace to find such men.

Many of them already live in our midst. Thieves – they are not found only in crowded markets. They are everywhere, even in government halls. In comparison, one will find “legalized” thieves operating in the offices, more than the jobless thieves in the market who operate only in times of need. Sometimes we wonder if the number of thieves in a crowded market is now as many as the number of honest men in government halls.

Liars – they appear in many notarized affidavits everywhere, including those that were signed but not prepared by Jun Lozada. They suddenly appear in denials of wrongdoings, duly notarized by unwitting lawyers and other notaries public in busy places like Trinidad or in sleepy towns like Kayapa.

Mind you, these affidavits of lies are the ones that are upheld by idiots to be the truth just because these were notarized by lawyers. In the words that were recited many times over by the many spokespersons of Malacanang, Jun Lozada signed a request for kidnappers, err I mean security men, and that forms part of the evidence against him.

Cheats – we know where and when to find them. Many presume that they are in the Comelec. They are not. They are employed by the DepEd and are assigned as election workers in the precincts where counting of votes take place. They are in charge of the ballots and ballot boxes in the precinct. By reading the ballots, they know if these were filled up or prepared by one and the same hand writing, just like the ballots that were found in all the barangays of Tuba.

There were also empty boxes and envelopes; and missing ballots and documents. In this case, the teachers may not have been in cahoots with some Comelec officials, but if they were, then the rest of the honest flock must denounce them. Apparently, cheating in the precincts in Tuba has been going on for the past many elections. Included among the thieves, liars and cheats are the chicken dung traders and their backers in government.

They have successfully made Shilan into the most obnoxious barangay in La Trinidad, Benguet; if not in the whole Philippines. They have turned a healthy community into a neighborhood of sickly men, women and children. There were corresponding legislative measures in the past. New laws are forthcoming, so they say. But then, it seems the negotiations between the chicken dung traders and the chicken manure sponsors in government are moving ahead than the approval of a new law. The droppings are picked up even before they fall from the chickens’ asshole. Now the problem is how to get rid of these characters.

Someone once said we go back to the two-party system and adopt back our old Constitution where all elected politicians will serve for four years plus one re-election. If so, we will get rid of the long six years for a president’s term and permanently get rid of the person after four years of bad performance. As for the LGU politicians, their short three years that is spent mostly in campaigning for the next three-year term is extended to four years, a longer time for them to finish their projects and to prove their worth. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com