Euro pabaon and balikbayan bomb

I have a headache!

If you have seriously tried to listen and learn from the on-going investigations of the “Euro Generals”, you probably get the feeling that the longer the investigations go, the farther they seem to be getting to the truth.

This is what often happens when people try to “throw the book” at the accused even before establishing what happened and how it happened. Unlike the court of public opinion, formal or legal investigations must first establish what the crime was and how the crime was committed.

Then and only then can you make determination of guilt, which is followed by the formal recommendations of charges which will then be the basis to begin with a new series of investigations, formal charges and finally determination of guilt and punishment. Pointing out contradictions, flaws and failures is not the same as finding out the truth.

 So, like both the Senate and Congress, we are so far from the truth we seek. Somehow it’s like the stories about the search for the “Holy Grail” which could never be found because only a man with a pure heart will find it. In the case of the “Euro Generals” the question is no longer about a pure heart but whether they are seriously interested in finding the holy trail!

I have neither a pure heart nor any serious interest in finding out where the holy trail leads to, but I have been told that one of the reasons the senators and the chief of the PNP can’t clear up the matter is because the money that was confiscated from General Dela Paz may not have been government property after all.

This would explain why the entire PNP organization had great difficulty explaining the source and purpose of the money. This would also explain why the investigation seemed to go nowhere and why General Dela Paz and the PNP officials were asking for an “Executive session” with the Senate investigators. Needless to say the vagueness of “contingency funds” and “Intelligence funds” is actually the appropriate term to use in the present situation.

People who spend time with the PNP and the AFP are all familiar with the term “pabaon” which is a tradition where they “pass the hat” and collect a going away present in the form of cash which is presented to an official who is about to retire. In the past the cash bonus often came from donations given by the various services or camp commanders in the region or all over the country where the retiring officer may have served or was instrumental in maintaining peace and order.

This is not necessarily hot money or jueteng money but freewill offerings from the hardware store owner, a victim of crime who got justice courtesy of police work or appreciative businessmen. It could also be the reverse. What complicates the thing is that by tradition you give the money before they retire which then makes receiving the money unlawful or illegal. To sum it in cliché, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and receiving the money, well “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”.

This scenario would put sense to why General dela Paz was holding the bag (of course assuming it was his baon). Since they were part of an official POLICE contingent attending a POLICE conference, you can only imagine that they breezed through arrival procedures in Russia. And being “Pinoy” they of course ignored the signs requiring them to declare their foreign currency.

So given such a scenario, any normal bunch of Filipinos would immediately band together to prevent the Russian authorities from confiscating Pinoy property. Whether it was Marcos money or General Garcia’s unexplained wealth, once the money was confiscated, the money began adding to the American economy and not the Filipinos, not to mention the time it took to retrieve the cash! How we will ever get the money back from Russia is worth the thought.

 Unfortunately several Senators sensationalized the process by way of their attention grabbing performances in the court of public opinion. To begin with, those investigating the “Euro Generals” failed to show restraint, fairness and objectivity.

The police officials may have learned the point why human rights activists have opposed the practice of putting suspects on public display, but the treatment they got at the Senate makes me wonder whether the Senators have gone too far. As they say don’t ask others to do what you yourself are not willing to do.

At one point the Senators were no longer investigating but interrogating PNP chief Jesus Versoza, that it looked like they wanted to make him look more like a fool than to find out how much he knew about the “Euro generals” issue. It was so bad I began to wonder if they were after General dela Paz or General Versoza!

Given that it was an investigation involving senior police officers, funds of undetermined source and purpose, and clearly had become a diplomatic as well as an International matter, prudence and sound judgment require that the entire investigation be done with care and not intentional scandal. Certainly it should not have been turned into a public trial of people who still needed to be given their day in court.

Our legislators may be following in the footsteps of their US counterparts who regularly conduct public hearings and public investigations concerning public policy and concern. But our local copycats fail in comparison because in the US they investigate and recommend. In the Philippines, they invite you to a hearing which is not about listening but about grilling you, they conduct an investigation which looks more like “life and death litigation”, and finally they declare your guilt but rarely your innocence.

In the meantime, we have more questions than answers. Yes we were briefly entertained with the investigative and prosecutorial performance of Senators working hard to get elected or re-elected, but was it worth dragging and trashing some innocent police officers and losing 105,000 euros to the Russian economy?

We were suppose to learn about the “pabaon” not the “pag baon” of generals.