What happens to NapoList matters

In 1996, a Seoul court sentenced former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan to death after finding him guilty of mutiny, treason and corruption. His successor, Roh Tae Woo, was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Chun’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Roh’s 22-year jail sentence was reduced to 17 years on appeal. Both were later released from prison and pardoned by then-president Kim Young-sam.

Washington Post reported that “the spectacle of the two once powerful leaders, dressed in prison garb like common criminals and standing grimly before the three judges, riveted the nation.” Can you imagine our senators and congressmen in the NapoList in prison garb like common criminals?

South Koreans, the Post continued, viewed the prosecution of former Presidents as “less a hearing on the specific crimes committed more than a decade ago by aging military leaders than as a pivotal step toward the establishment of the rule of law by a country trying to cleanse itself of its brutal and corrupt past.”

In 2009, Roh Moo-hyun, a former President, had been driven to suicide by throwing himself off a cliff. The humiliation of being investigated for suspected corruption was too much for him to bear.

 Interestingly, when the South Korean President most responsible for the country’s phenomenal growth, the dictatorial Park Chung-hee, died in 1979, South Koreans learned that he had only one piece of property, an old apartment that he bought before he became president. He could have but did not enrich himself while in power.

Park reminds me of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. Both had a vision for the country and were not sidetracked by temptations for illicit wealth the way Marcos was when he enjoyed similar dictatorial powers.

My neighbor in our subdivision, Alex Lacson, wrote about South Korea recently and how it became Asia’s fourth largest economy and the world’s 15th. More importantly, less than two percent of the population lives in poverty.

Yet, Alex pointed out, South Korea has virtually no natural resources. Only 21 percent of the land is arable and fit to grow crops on. On top of all these, the country’s first president, Syngman Rhee, was corrupt, dictatorial, and didn’t care much for the people’s welfare.

As I googled to learn more about South Korea and its struggle against corruption, two studies came out that actually compared corruption in South Korea and in the Philippines. In so many words, the studies concluded that there was stronger political will in Korea to fight corruption than here in our country.

Of course they have not been able to totally eliminate corruption in South Korea. That is why we occasionally hear of chaebol leaders being punished for corruption. Their legal system, it seems, is a lot more effective than ours… and that makes a big difference. The Koreans have one tough prosecution group that feared no one, not even the President.

Sadly, our story is nothing more than a series of missed opportunities to clean up. I was barely in high school when the Stonehill corruption scandal erupted. Harry Stonehill was a former American GI who made a fortune in tobacco, among others. Justice Secretary Jose W Diokno was investigating Stonehill for alleged corrupt practices. In a raid conducted by the NBI of various Stonehill offices, a “blue book” was discovered and it contained a list of top Philippine government officials he had bribed.

As could be expected, the list reportedly included almost every major politician from both the ruling party and the opposition. President Macapagal fired Secretary Diokno and Stonehill was quickly deported so he couldn’t tell more.

We have had a lot of Stonehills and “blue books” since. Stonehill’s list is now Napoles’s List. The names may be different but it’s the same story about the betrayal of public trust by public officials.

Today, I am afraid not so much that the membership of the Senate and the House may be decimated but that this NapoList may prove too much for our legal system to process.

The lawyers and the spin masters will do all they can to muddle the basic sordid tales of corruption to confuse everybody. A good number of guilty parties will go scot free, thanks to legal technicalities.

The resources of the Ombudsman will be stretched to the breaking point. Whatever list we use, there are just too many names there for the Ombudsman to expeditiously investigate and file cases against at the Sandiganbayan.

Time favors the scalawags, as usual, because we easily forget. Just look at the Marcoses. A good number of us still think they are respectable. Our judicial system has not found them guilty after all these years.

There has to be a special way of processing these cases or otherwise, we will lose the momentum for reform powered by an angry public shocked by it all. The normal processes will result in a miscarriage of justice because the culprits and their lawyers will just buy time and use all the tricks in the book.

As soon as the DOJ makes up its mind on how to handle the NapoList, it must coordinate with the Ombudsman, the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court. A special court handling nothing but the characters in the NapoList will be necessary.

Like the South Koreans, we need to show the world that everyone is equal before the law. We need a drastic cleansing process to happen. Otherwise, our country will only slide deeper into an uncertain existence where citizens do not trust their government and officials don’t care how we feel about them as long as they can enrich themselves in office.

We will lose what is left of our national pride. Our young people, specially those with needed skills, will vote with their feet and move to foreign lands as fast as they can. We will reach a point when nothing short of bloodshed is necessary to cleanse our land.

Our situation today is less about an iron clad proof of corruption committed by our political leaders (because we are convinced some if not most of them are guilty) than as a pivotal step toward proving to ourselves we have what it takes to fix this embarrassing tear in our moral fiber as a people.

The NapoList is everyone’s business. Let us get the truth out. Indeed, if P-Noy does not realize it yet, there is danger his watch will be remembered by how he lost Daang Matuwid with the mishandling of NapoList.

Throw some rascals in jail. Nothing less than jailing at least some of those in the NapoList will do.

OFW writes

 Engr. Jun Poquiz from Jeddah wrote me this e-mail.

Dear Mr. Chanco,

I have read your column today. You are one of my favorite. You write direct to the point. You are exactly right.

As an OFW, I am angry about our airport collecting terminal fee without proper air conditioning, just a clean washroom and a cleaner who hands you a piece of tissue paper right after you wash your hands.

I have traveled with my family passing through the world class airports of Hongkong, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, etc. having excellent facilities and free internet but I never paid any terminal fee.

I was specially embarrassed to hear a departing European tourist saying right after passing through immigration at NAIA: “It’s even more hot here than outside! And they call this an international airport?”

About Telcos, they sell SIM cards at the NAIA arrival area right after passing through Customs desk. I paid P999 for a month of internet, after they loaded, did the settings, they showed me the SMS confirming my subscription. However, they told me the internet is temporarily down so I just have to wait till it is restored to get my automatic connection. I even went to the Telco’s center at the SM North.

Anyway, I finished my one month vacation and the connection never came. I just relied on WiFi connections wherever I go. I felt robbed by that Telco at the arrival area and I felt robbed by the government at the Departure area after paying my family’s terminal fee.

 BTW, bakit sa Middle East lahat ng provider pag nagtext ka or tumawag, meron kang resibong text na sabihin sa iyo:

1. Magkano ang cost ng text or tawag na ginawa mo.

2. Magkano pa ang balanse sa load mo.

Sa mga telco sa pinas, itetext lang ang balance sa load mo. Meaning di mo alam kung magkano binawas kung di ka maglista palagi at mag compute kasi di naman stored sa inbox yung sms na resibong yun. 

Salamat, marami kayong kakampi dito. Please huwag tayong bibitaw dito sa laban na ito. Nakakahiya.

Thank you and more power to you.

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