Strategic anger

There is a potentially game changing development ahead of us. If things work out, maybe more than half of the total membership of our Senate could be suspended and even convicted of plunder. A significant number of congressmen and officials in the executive branch could suffer the same fate.

This may yet be the big signal to the world that we are finally tired of corruption and are doing something about it. Unfortunately, it may be more difficult to strike this blow without the cooperation of the person who is at the center of the corruption scandal and who enriched herself by shamelessly stealing public funds.

I take the statement of the Ombudsman that she does not need her testimony because she has enough evidence to convict as just so much bravado. If that is true, how come the Ombudsman has not yet filed the PDAF cases at the Sandiganbayan? Of course the testimony of the scam’s operator can only strengthen the case to assure quick conviction.

Until she reportedly confessed it all to Justice Secretary De Lima, I was for showing no mercy in prosecuting Janet Lim Napoles, jailing her and throwing away the key. No one knows her real motives for now wanting to tell the truth or if she is capable of doing that. But her motives aside, we must hear her testimony if that can lead to the early conviction of the bastards we elected to public office.

It is easy to say in social media that there should be no compromise with Ms. Napoles. We are angry because of her misdeeds. We are angry with her and her daughter for flaunting their ill-gotten wealth. We are angry at how she apparently lied through her teeth when she last testified at a Senate hearing.

Being angry is one thing. It relieves us of inner tension that makes our blood pressure soar. But as anything else in this world, being angry must also be strategic. It is wrong and useless to just be angry. We must make sure our anger will solve a problem or will right a wrong.

The entire nation must rightfully be angry with Ms. Napoles. But there is an even greater need for all of us to be angrier with the people who betrayed the trust we placed on them when we voted them into public office.

Ms. Napoles must be punished… she must be jailed. But even more important is the need to cleanse the public service of traitors who enriched themselves by stealing from the National Treasury.

If it means we have to be a little lenient with Ms. Napoles on the condition that she helps us convict a bunch of senators, congressmen and top executive officials, so be it. Her lawyer said she didn’t ask to be a state’s witness but we all know that’s how it will likely end.

Allowing Ms. Napoles to be a state’s witness may be the price we have to pay to achieve the higher objective of unmasking the public officials who betrayed the public trust. Let us just make it a condition that Ms. Napoles will return what she has stolen with the connivance of our officials. She cannot be allowed to enjoy the fruits of her ill-gotten wealth.

It would be ideal if Ms. Napoles just testified and refused immunity by saying she is fully contrite and will just throw herself at the mercy of the court. Testimony against self interest should be a pretty powerful blow against the thieves in public service. That may even make us feel like forgiving Ms. Napoles and that may earn her an early pardon down the road.

Until Ms. Napoles decided to sing, we faced the prospect of a long trial. Given our short memories and our judiciary’s reputation as the best that money can buy, she and the traitors we call senators and congressmen are likely to get away with plunder.

Now that she is on the side of prosecution, we can have a quick trial that will hopefully be over before the 2016 elections. We need to know who cannot be trusted anymore with our votes.

Indeed, the earlier her entire list is made public, the better it is for the credibility of the Justice Secretary and this administration. Any delay will give credence to talk that the list is being sanitized to take out officials with close ties to P-Noy and the party in power.

We cannot waste this golden opportunity to clean up house big time. What international headlines we will make if we are able to convict sitting senators and congressmen for plunder! Even our credibility to the international business community will be enhanced, a positive development that could lead to increased job- creating foreign investments.

The thing to do now is to put pressure on Sec. De Lima to play this clean. Let us give her our total support so that she will be encouraged to stand up to Malacañang if need be. Let us make resigning a better option for Sec. De Lima than to play politics with something as critical as this one.

Let us make it clear to Sec. De Lima that in this case, her boss is not the one living at Malacanang but the Filipino people directly. Let us make public sentiment clear so that even powerful administration figures will think twice before they pressure Sec. De Lima to play politics. Let them feel our anger and make them fearful of our wrath if they monkey around this one.

Some of us may not like Sec. De Lima or suspect her to have political ambitions. Those reservations do not matter now.  First things first. Let us not be distracted by antics of the spin masters of guilty parties involved.

Sec. De Lima is the only public official with the genuine Napoles list, she is also the only one who can do something about it. She is the only one who has heard her and witnessed her signing that affidavit. In a way, Sec. De Lima is also the only one we have who can move this on at this time.

 Let us be strategic with our anger. Let us support the three women, including the Ombudsman, who can make this public cleansing possible. Afterwards, we can do what we want but not before we do what is important to clean our government of  corruption, because that’s keeping our country poor all these years.

We simply cannot fail. A golden opportunity like this may not happen again in a long time.

Hopeless

Sometimes, I think we are hopeless. I don’t see the point why Sec. Rene Almendras had to clarify that they didn’t apologize but just expressed regrets. It should have been enough that the lingering problem with Hong Kong had been resolved and our “regrets” accepted. Why rub the difference? It’s so juvenile.

It was a good thing that Erap, whatever his real motives may be, had the guts to go to Hong Kong and settle this thing. There seems to be this childish predisposition of P-Noy to insist that he had been right all along. Notice the Yolanda casualty count and in this case, his refusal to apologize for the incompetence of his officials. Sec. Almendras is saying on his behalf that Hong Kong eventually accepted less than an apology and he won this battle of wits… belat!

That’s not diplomacy. When dealing with other nations, the objective should always be harmonious relationship. In the process of settling disputes or misunderstandings, one side probably gets more than the other but in drafting the final communiqué only the fact that agreement is reached is important.

It is not alright for the Palace to act like a Student Council on domestic issues. But it is outright wrong to do so in international relations because it embarrasses the nation. In this regard, Erap proved to be more of the statesman many of us didn’t expect of him.

The former President settled the problem and even raised private funds to get a closure. That’s being a leader I wish P-Noy had grown up to be after more than three years on the job.

Error

There was an error in the headline of my column last Friday. I should have used imperil, a verb, instead of peril, a noun. The headline should have read “Legal woes imperil MRT3 rehab”.

So sorry about that. I missed it and so did my editors. Oh well... The peril of rushing to meet daily deadlines!

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco