PCSO must indict its ex-directors

All nations honor their war dead. In Europe schools set up regular trips to battlefields and cemeteries. America churns out each year dozens of books and poems on fallen and living heroes. China and Korea oppose Japan’s rewriting of invasion atrocities. The Philippines pays homage too — divisively as always.

Recent weeks saw tart arguing in the streets about where finally to inter President Ferdinand Marcos. It should have been settled as far back as 1993, had the Marcoses complied with a Malacañang directive to bury him with military honors in his native Ilocos. But they had carried out only the military part, then encased him in a glass refrigerator for public display. Now 18 years later congressmen overwhelmingly want Marcos given a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. This sparks disputes about his alleged fake war exploits and abuses as martial law dictator. History textbooks are ambivalent about it all. Largely ignored are the victims and kin of martial law tortures and killings, who recently won indemnity, charged to Marcos’s unexplained wealth.

Forgotten too are uncontested heroes. More Filipinos perhaps have visited Hong Kong than Corregidor. Fort Santiago, where their ancestors were garroted for refusing to bow to invaders, is now a lovers’ lane. Dapitan, Rizal’s exile place, is more known for a legislator convicted of child sex. Last month the Roxases quietly bore the vandalizing of the family mausoleum at the Manila North Cemetery. The brass inscriptions on the tombs of President Manuel and First Lady Trinidad Roxas were stolen — on the latter’s 16th death anniversary week. There has been no word from the police guards. Few know that inside the cemetery is a Mousoleo de los Veteranos de la Revolucion. Other war memorials have fallen to neglect. Yet Japan spends big to erect shrines to its warriors — in Baguio, Pampanga, Laguna, Negros, everywhere in the Philippines.

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Fr. Robert Reyes has long been denouncing bribery of bishops. Called “running priest” for organizing marathons to publicize his causes, he ran several kilometers to the EDSA Shrine in 2005, then began a fast. Prayers outpoured for discernment, as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines debated to censure then-President Gloria Arroyo for the “Hello Garci” election fraud. The prelates emerged from the conclave with no concrete stand on the matter. Reports surfaced that Malacañang had bused a number of them to a presidential dinner, where envelopes with P50,000 were distributed. Bishops purportedly were cheaper than congressmen, who commanded P500,000 per loyalty check.

Now the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office admits that two bishops and five dioceses got more, at least P1 million each in 2009. By then Arroyo was besieged by other exposés of scams: in fertilizers, ZTE, Northrail-Southrail, China’s oil explorations in Philippine waters, and territorial cession to Moro separatists. Fr. Reyes is up in arms anew, demanding full investigation by the CBCP of the breach of a gentlemen’s agreement. In 2005 the bishops had sworn to shun tainted offerings. The PCSO “donations” ostensibly were for SUVs to reach far-flung villages, but the objective, Reyes says, obviously was bribery.

The bishops are to gather this weekend in regular council. But it’s emerging this early that the bribery angle will be downplayed. Already they are diverting the issue. CBCP head Bishop Nereo Odchimar accuses the PCSO of singling out Catholic hierarchs, perhaps for their opposition to President Noynoy Aquino’s Family Planning Bill. (The SUV exposé came from an official state audit.) One of the SUV recipients, Bishop Martin Jumaod, says they will continue to criticize Aquino who “is doing nothing for the country.” Another SUV taker, Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, had stated earlier that Aquino has no right to be President and so faces ouster. Other bishops are taunting the exposers to bring the case straight to the Pope, since the consultative CBCP has no disciplinary clout. Father Robert is likely to be frustrated again.

Making bishops confess could be futile. Still the PCSO has the duty to right the wrong uncovered by the Audit Commission. The doles are illegal. The Constitution states, Article VI, Legislative Department, Section 29-(2): “No public money or property shall be appropriated, applied, paid, or employed, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, sectarian institution, or system of religion, or of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary....” Past directors who had granted the handouts must be made to answer: Sergio Valencia, Rosario Uriarte, Manuel Morato, Raymundo Roquero, Jose Taruc V, and Ma. Fatima Valdes.

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Readers continue to recount ordeals in the hands of Immigration officers. Some are about mulcting and un-receipted exactions; most are of hassling of tourists and overseas workers at international airports. They tend to validate the figures released by the bureau no less. That is, that over 32,000 tourists have been barred from departing since January, but only two have led to charges of human trafficking.

Many cry for inquiries: by the Ombudsman for the extortion, the Civil Service Commission to sack the abusers, the Commission on Human Rights for the curtailment of travel, and the Interagency Council Against Human Trafficking for the use of its name as cover for all this.

First to investigate, of course, should be the Immigration chief and the Secretary of Justice to whom he reports. Yet nobody is asking for that, implying doubt perhaps in its outcome?

Acknowledgments to Perlita Odulio, Cernan Garrovillas, KC, Carlos Baldago, Mandy Salagubang, Ryan Silverio, Chen Xing, Kisigman, Robert Q., Sammy Madrid, Badong S., Nice Domingo, Gigi J., Henry Tropeo, Ralph T., Leonard Ganzon, Rowena Smith, and those who requested anonymity.

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