For: Everyone
From: History
Subject: What fairness?

This memo is being issued for those who have forgotten their history and/or think the Arroyo administration is fair.

Remember Jocelyn Bolante and the Fertilizer Fund scam? The Senate Committee on Agriculture and the Blue Ribbon Committee finished their investigation, and issued a report March 1, 2006. They recommended that charges be filed against Bolante, who is now incarcerated at the United States for entering the country with a cancelled visa. February last year, the Ombudsman began investigating the fertilizer scam. Nothing has been heard about this case since.

There is no excuse for the delay. The Senate Committees had already forwarded their findings to the Ombudsman. All the Ombudsman needs to do is to verify the facts. It should not take a year to file a case. Maybe because Gloria Arroyo is linked to the scam.

Then, there’s Hernando Perez and the IMPSA deal. While the CBK-IMPSA deal has been in the works since 1992, the deal was approved four days after Gloria Arroyo and cohorts booted out Estrada. Here is PCIJ’s expose and timeline. The Ombudsman took 6 years just to find out that Perez is liable. The case is languishing in the Sandiganbayan ever since, as it had languished at the Ombudsman for 6 years.

That’s just two cases. Here is Dean Jorge Bocobo’s Google search queries for all the scandals and scams under the current dispensation.

Compare that with the speed at which Joseph Estrada’s case was dispatched. After his ouster as President in January 20, 2001, the Ombudsman filed cases of plunder and perjury against Estrada April 4, 2001, using the evidences presented in the aborted impeachment trial. (Heck, PCIJ even complained that Estrada’s trial would last ages!) The articles of impeachment were transmitted to the Senate in November 13, 2000, a month after Luis Singson’s allegations were publicized.

How’s that for fairness. FYI.

Reference:
The iniquity of selective prosecution

Joseph Estrada is found guilty of plunder and is sentenced for life imprisonment. He is found not guilty of perjury.

His son Jinggoy Estrada and other accused are acquitted of all charges.

My view: For those who are claiming that this verdict should be a warning to all corrupt politicians – in your dreams. The justice system remains broken as ever, and nothing has changed. A single verdict will not change the system. As long as you continue electing corrupt politicians, as long as you selectively put corrupt people in jail, as long as you tolerate petty violations of the law, as long as apathy reigns among us, no amount of jail time nor gun shots can address corruption.

This is not the time to celebrate. We must now buckle down to work, and start with ourselves. Start by following simple traffic rules. Start by stopping bribery in any form. Start by electing the right people. Start by holding ALL OF OUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE. Start by paying attention to what is happening around us.

If we don’t start now, it is only a matter of time before another Chavit surfaces. Yes, he should be in jail, too.

UPDATE:

Here is Black and White Movement’s statement on the verdict:

BnW REACTION TO ERAP VERDICT

We respect the decision of the Sandiganbayan in regard to the plunder case against former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

We presume the court arrived at its decision after careful evaluation of evidence presented during the trial.

The Black & White Movement, however, laments the selective application of justice – expedient and with a heavy hand for those perceived to be enemies of the GMA regime, while slow and protective toward those allied with her.

What is the difference between Jose Velarde and Jose Pidal?

Why has this government not pursued the cases against Nani Perez, Joc-Joc Bolante, Virgilio Garcillano, and more recently, Benjamin Abalos’ alleged complicity in the ZTE deal? Instead of pursuing these cases, this administration has stonewalled through gag orders such as the illegal EO 464 and questionable MO 108.

This reflects the sad state of our justice system where political patronage is the rule of the day. Those out of favor with the powers that be are prosecuted while those in the inner circle are beyond the reach of the long arm of the law. As former President “Erap” himself has put it… “weather-weather lang.”

We can only hope that when the political winds change direction, those who are currently in the circle of power, who are allegedly involved in crimes more sinister and heinous than Erap’s plunder, will have their day in court.

Here are the links to the decision (I suggest clicking on Mirrors 3-5):

Mirror 1
Mirror 2
Mirror 3
Mirror 4
Mirror 5

Here is the ABS-CBN News report: Erap guilty of plunder (slow load at this moment, you have to wait for a few minutes)
Here is Inquirer.net news report: Estrada guilty of plunder; perjury rap dropped
GMA 7 news report: Sandigan verdict: Erap guilty of plunder, cleared of perjury

Last year, the AWBHoldings.com Wall of Shame contained the names of all the honorable congressmen who voted not to impeach Gloria Arroyo. This year, it is time to put new names in that virtual wall.

So vote in the poll at the side bar. Basically, these four choices are to be included in this year’s Wall of Shame. The thing is, who should be number one? That I leave to you, dear readers. So vote now.

If you want to explain your vote, leave a comment. If you want to nominate someone else, leave the name at the comments. Prank comments shall be deleted.

In his lecture for the Bloggers Kapihan, Victor Villanueva gave four tips to new bloggers. One of them is worth expounding further, and in context of what had happened in the blogosphere recently.

His four tips are as follows:

1. Know what you are saying.
2. Try to be visual.
3. Link up.
4. Go out.

For the first tip, he said the following:

* Be prepared to face the consequence(s) of what you write.
* Be prepared for confrontation.
* Deleting (or locking) entries can be futile.

Let me discuss his first tip and apply it in the context of the the Malu Fernandez controversy and the Cris Mendez case.

Bloggers took note of the mean things Malu Fernandez had said about Filipinos in general, and they blogged about it. The posts range from intellectual ones down to outright ad hominem attacks. The comments were worst. Fernandez isssued an apology and resigned from the publications who published her articles. The daily did not accept her resignation.

A show on a cable news channel took notice of what had happened, and they had invited several bloggers and journalists for a discussion. The bloggers were put on the defensive, as if the problem began with the bloggers, and the show never even bothered dealing with what Malu Fernandez wrote. Aside from an implicit validation that blogging is a new avenue for information (which for some journalists is a direct competition), it somehow made me reflect on blogging at that point.

When the time comes that a blogger has to take a stand, he has to think hard about it; when he does take a stand and blog about it, he should expect that someone will contradict him. And if the blog post is controversial enough, the blogger should expect negative comments. He should be prepared to explain, to answer questions, to receive brickbats.

Which leads me to the next issue.

Dr. Tess Termulo pointed to a blog post at a certain social networking site where the blogger said something controversial enough to merit comments that are against the blogger’s idea. The blogger cannot defend her assertions, so she locked the entry so that only a select few can read and post comments.

Remember what Bikoy had said? “Be prepared to face the consequence of what you write.” “Be prepared for confrontation.” “Deleting blog entries can be futile.”

That blogger should have attended Bloggers’ Kapihan.

You are free to write about what you feel and what you think. When you publish it for the entire world to read, expect that someone will disagree. That someone will express his disagreement. He will point out why you are wrong. There will be confrontation. If you cannot defend what you have written, if you cannot face confrontation, you are only defeating yourself. You are only showing that your stand is weak, your opinion untenable.

And locking a blog post is like deleting it – it is futile. Going back to that locked post that Dr. Termulo had pointed out, The Jester-in-Exile had managed to read the post, and published that post in his blog, together with his comments blasting the locked post to bits.

Blogging is not as simple as journal or diary writing. In writing a diary, only you can read what you write. When you blog, it can be read by everyone with an access to the Internet. I suggest that you think first, and think hard, before clicking the Publish button. If you can’t defend it, don’t blog about it. You are only putting yourself to the slaughterhouse.

UPDATE:

While this blog post is old, it is a classic example of how the blogosphere works, and ultimately, how a flawed commentary should be addressed – blasting all arguments to bits.