Estrada’s arrest should be government’s priority / Of all people, why Benny? - HERE'S THE SCORE by Teodoro C. Benigno

What was People Power II? It was a great gust of historic wind. It was four days that shook the nation and bade it to take the high road. It was the people in uproar, the youth in upheaval against a cruel unjust society. It was a ball of fire that razed the government of Joseph Estrada like a wicker basket. It was a balled fist telling the leaders of our society that enough was enough. It was a banging of gongs calling for reforms, for crime to flee, for poverty to melt, for corruption to end. It was a cry for the immediate arrest of Joseph Estrada, his imprisonment and his trial. It was a call for renewal and justice. It was hammer on the heart of a bleeding nation.

And now what do we have?

The thunder of People Power has suddenly been stilled. It was as though a wall had been set up between Malacañang Palace and the people. For who do we see within? A lot of the old thieves are there. The celestials simply switched from Joseph Estrada to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. There has been no purge in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Customs, and we are told they are among the most corrupt in Asia. Eduardo (Danding) Cojuangco – the ultimate crony who fled with Ferdinand Marcos then came back to backstop Erap – tends political bar in Malacañang, and GMA sees nothing wrong with that.

What’s more, the people have been forgotten, largely anyway. And what more do we see? The gradual militarization of the government, a fondness for generals, the perfumed handkerchief of the president ushering them in, a mating call that disturbs me no end. I would have thought that the retirement of Gen. Angelo Reyes as AFP chief of staff was the end of it. After all, General Reyes fired Admiral Guillermo Wong as chief of naval operations, whose only fault was that he exposed graft and corruption in the marines. He should have been awarded a medal.

No serious investigation, as far as I know, was ordered and presidential executive secretary Renato de Villa, PMA emeritus par excellence, looked the other way. Devil never really bothered with what was perceived as widespread graft in the military and police.

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No, Lord Byron was not referring to General Reyes when he said: "Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep and die!"

General Reyes did not even fade away like old soldiers do. He was promoted by GMA to the post of secretary of national defense. Just to make sure everybody is happy, GMA said the diplomatic plum in Taipei, the MECO, was his (Gen. Edgardo "Spine" Espinosa) "for the asking" and Admiral Wong would be named ambassador to Cambodia. Gen. Eduardo Ermita, who held the DND post temporarily, would be presidential adviser for peace negotiations with the CPP-NDF-NPA and the MILF. Generals galore. And the people? The multitudes at the EDSA Shrine and all over the country?

Where are they? Never mind.

What really gets my goat is that the 13 senatorial candidates of the People Power Coalition (PPC) aren’t really delivering the message. Theirs should be the thunder of EDSA Dos, the raised verbal bayonet that they fought Joseph Estrada, that they mounted the barricades against thievery, against men and women who despoiled the treasury, against Loi and the mistresses, that they were ready to risk everything to get the man out, and some even wanted to kill him if that would be necessary.

Some of the 13 were heroes of the impeachment process. The story of People Power II should be told and retold again and again, but that is not what is happening. What you hear is the cat’s meow, not the lion’s roar. The PPC senatorial candidates are being made up to look good – image-wise – by Lupita Kashiwahara. But the bark is missing, the gospel of EDSA is missing, the hoot and bellow of the righteous, the verbal dagger, the rage of men and women who know they are in the right. The issues.

They foray into Estrada territory and allow themselves to be booed, heckled, insulted and I understand Franklin Drilon narrowly missed getting hit by a bottle on his mandible. Hell, no. They should tell these ignorant, misguided yokels they are being gypped by Erap, that Erap’s mistresses relieve themselves on a toilet bowl inlaid in pure gold, while they have nothing but a stinking midden shed. And wipe their private parts with bamboo slats. They should have brought with them photos of Erap’s mansions, that for Laarni, that for Guia Gomez, that for Rowena Lopez and so on, that their spending money would cover all their needs for decades on end, not only theirs but their children and their children’s children.

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They should carry the fight to the enemy and not be awed by Estrada’s so-called popularity in the boondocks.

And people like Conrado (Dodie) Limcaoco should shut up. Supposedly headmaster of the PPC campaign together with Paul Aquino, Mr. Limcaoco has been quoted as saying Erap Estrada should not be arrested now because that would alienate the poor and cost the PPC senatorial candidates a lot of votes. That is precisely the kind of crap that makes the PPC senatorial line-up look like Rover Boys on the mend from correctional school. They have become shy. Instead of digging a balisong into Erap’s innards – which he really deserves – they take it easy on Erap in the fear that if they don’t, they’ll lose votes.

Now, let’s hit it right on the barrelhead. The sooner Mr. Estrada is arrested for a slew of crimes, including plunder, the better for you and me, the better for the country. Let the law take its course. For the law makes no differentiation between prince and peasant. The moment Erap Estrada is arrested, he loses whatever magic he has left. The moment he enters prison, the anting-anting is gone, and he’s just another convict serving time while accused during a trial.

The fear Estrada’s arrest will set off turbulence among his followers and they could possibly riot is a lot of hot hoosh. They say 10,000 such followers will come. But against 10,000, more than 100,000 anti-Erap protesters will come. And five gets you two, the 10,000 will turn tail, refuse to fight at all, and make a beeline for the paymaster who’ll give them P300 to P500 each. You saw the pro-Erap group at Mendiola January 20. When the horde from the EDSA Shrine came, they scattered like geese, gabbled like geese, and fled like geese.

I just got the news the Supreme Court will soon extend by another 30 days Estrada’s pre-arraignment reprieve. If true, the High Court is courting the whirlwind. And playing with fire. The momentum of People Power II must be kept alive. The Supreme Court stalls this momentum, grinds it into dry clay, and there will be hell to pay. I hope the report is not true. Estrada should have been arrested by this time. And if he is given another 30-day lease, who knows what will happen. This guy escapes, and the Supreme Court will get all the blame.

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However belatedly, we join the chorus of voices raised in high dudgeon against the 15-year jail sentence slapped by Sandiganbayan on Bienvenido A. Tan, who served the Cory Aquino government at the same time I labored the vineyards of the press office. No, I do not pretend to know the whys and wherefores of the case, for this is legalese and I will need one whole day to go over the papers.

But there was nobody like Benny. He was honest. He had integrity. He was almost like a saint. The Tans of his breed were a rare lot, questing always for the good in man, or seeking to succor them for their sins and trespasses. You meet a nun like Christine Tan once in a lifetime, and so do you encounter Benny Tan only at the end of a long trail. And they were and are brother and sister.

We go in stride with the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation whose members have urged the court to take a second look at his case. I know a lot of Tans who should be in jail or wrapped around a scaffold to be flogged by iron chains. But not Benny. He was a monk in civilian clothes, with a stride that almost always reminded me of priests walking with bowed heads inside an abbey. He did his duty as he saw it, a thorny, difficult one for he headed the BIR, which most people depict as a nest of vipers.

But I cannot imagine Benny Tan colluding with them. The Ombudsman determined that there was no connivance or conspiracy between him and his employees. Connivance? That would have been like saying Mother Teresa pocketed a good slice of the contributions that came her way for the care of the dregs of the earth she nourished till the end of her life.

Let’s give that court case a last, lingering look, armored largely by the thought that Benny Tan was not, could never be a crook, that his mission in life was to do good by his fellowmen. If he tripped at all, it was probably a faulty judgment call but even that is something that escapes me for Benny was Benny, always with a song in his heart, and a rosary in his pocket.