Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Cheery countenance of corruption

By Terence Eyre Belangoy




“Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man? 

 

Hobbes: I'm not sure that man needs the help.”

 

                It was probably one of the biggest corruption scandals in our province in the mid-nineties; I was then in high school. It took a more personal touch because the personalities involved are all too familiar: I practically grew up with them, my father working in the (then government but subsequently privatized) corporation embroiled in the scandal. I saw them during company outings, events, and parties. And my mother was with the COA team that investigated the anomaly which borne out the findings that eventually led to the filing of the cases against the respondents involved. Some of the respondents have fled abroad while one was found guilty, the guilt affirmed by the Supreme Court.


               Said recent promulgation of the Supreme Court of the decision in the case (see case/jurisprudence below) involving one respondent refreshed my memories;  and I have gleaned insights at those events and other cases of corruption which are all too familiar to me. 


                  Familiarity eases out suspicion, not that I would know the workings of government at the time, being in my teens then. But you'll never know who are corrupt or corruptible, yet those who you're familiar with are oftentimes above suspicion, at least from one's perspective. Nevertheless, it's still surprising, nay, shocking if those who are involved are six degrees of separation or less, so to speak, from whom you know. That is, these can be people you are privy about: familiar, friendly, cheery faces or countenance, acquaintances or friends of family members, or people whom the community look up to.

 

                The same thing, more or less, happened many years later. This one involved a balikbayan who ran (and eventually won) for Congressman in our district. Implicated was a lady-lawyer whose family was quite familiar to me, and who even served as Guest Speaker on my fourth year high school Honors Day. The former was honored by my high school as, if I'm not mistaken, an outstanding alumnus; the latter graduated from the same high school and college/university I graduated from and who is/ whose relatives are friend/s of/with family or friends of friends. All in all, being in a province where almost everyone knows everybody else, the degrees of separation are not at all that distant. 


                I won't dwell too much into this second graft/corruption case but I have read all the pertinent papers, documents and court pleadings (some of which I drafted for my mother's COA friends) including the COA reports of the anomaly/discrepancy involving the donated money of a chamber of commerce for construction projects in the province. The Congressman (who touts himself as pro-service and financially well-endowed that he doesn't need to be corrupt---all of which are pure helium of hot air as toxic as the farts of a thousand politicians) siphoned as much as P18 Million---yes, that's one-eight followed by six zeroes. The lady-lawyer co-signed his corrupt boss by acting as the attorney-in-fact, i.e., agent or representative. 

 

                 At the rate people gets corrupted  or are being corrupt, this disease is not going anywhere anytime soon. And it's so malevolent that it strikes anybody: foe, friend, and friends of friends alike. Beneath the cheery countenance of a common chum may lurk a contemptible corrupt core.   

 

 

sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2011/ PNB vs. Padao

 

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