Charge Dutertes, cohorts for graft
By Diego Morra
If the Marcos Jr. administration were to be true to its word to throw the books at the people who helped Alice Guo escape to Malaysia, Singapore and then to Indonesia, it should also be committed to haul off the Dutertes, Michael Yang, Sens. Bong Go and Bato de la Rosa to the prosecutor’s office for the key roles, not only in the bloody “war on drugs,” but also for abetting the wholesale violations of Philippine laws by illegal POGOs.
Aside from these mortal sins, the Department of Justice (DOJ) should hold their feet to the fire for the graft-ridden Pharmally scam that caused the loss of billions in the purchases of face masks, the subcontracted face shields deals by the Davao group, as well as the dubious reclamation and dredging projects pursued by Linconn Ong and his principals, and the waste of public money through the confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) of both Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio. ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro has also urged that Sara be investigated for spending P2.7-billion as CIF when she was Davao City mayor.
It has become abundantly clear that the Pharmally scam could not have happened without the indispensable cooperation of the Office of the President (OP), the Department of Health (DOH) and Christopher Lao, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) pencil pusher suddenly thrust into procurement service of the agency to “facilitate” the exclusive Pharmally purchases of China-made masks, personal protective equipment (PPE) and the face shield monopoly of the Davao Group. Rodrigo Duterte, now Sen. Bong Go, Michael Yang and Lao operated seamlessly to implement the Covid purchases over the heads of medical and health experts, resulting in the unjust enrichment of Pharmally, which was capitalized only at P625,000 and did not have the capital to import goods worth billions of pesos.
The recent congressional hearing on the budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) revealed that the Commission on Audit (COA) had discovered that Sara spent P53 million for the rent or lease of 10 satellite offices and two extension offices under the OVP last year. In 2022, Sara spent P29 million for rent or lease, meaning she was paying P4.4 million monthly. This stumped Quezon City 3rd District Rep. Franz Pumaren who said the rent of the OVP under former Vice President Leni Robredo was P308,700 plus 12% or P345,744 monthly for a Quezon City property that was 5,100 sq. m.
Sara is now under the gun for boycotting the congressional hearing on the budget of the Department of Education (DepEd) on Sept. 10. After saying that the appropriations committee should decide on the DepEd budget, Sara blasted her sworn enemy Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co, chairman of the appropriations panel, for allegedly seeking to control P10-billion of the DepEd budget to finance classroom construction. She claimed she thumbed the proposal down. In retort, Co said Sara was deflecting since she cannot defend her own budget and could not provide any rational explanation for the mountain of COA’s disallowances, suspensions and charges on P12.3-billion of DepEd expenditures.
Investigators should be in a position to develop a legal theory on why the POGOs were allowed to proliferate since their operations revved up during the Duterte regime and the same clique that lawyered for Chinese companies were also involved in the shabu trade. The financial wizards that sold cell phones in Mindanao below market prices were the same financial wizards that organized the POGOs in Porac, Pampanga and Bamban, Tarlac and imported the magnetic lifters that contained shabu. Moreover, they owned large pieces of agricultural property in both towns that suddenly became rural Shenzhens in Central Luzon, complete with extraterritorial police.
The culture of corruption, which is embedded in criminal organizations, has the best fit with the culture of graft that pervades in government like the one led by Rodrigo Duterte, who pronounced in his presidential that he condemns corruption in all its forms and threatened to transform Manila Bay into a sea of red, with the corpses of criminals floating around. He roared “change is coming.” It did come in the form of chump change, in the many scams that were inaugurated on June 30, 2016.
Government will find tons of evidence to hale the Dutertes before the courts of law. With Duterte now reduced to merely threaten anyone without the military and the police to back him, it is the right time to make the law reign supreme and not beholden to a bully past his prime. He has become a dog that is all bark and no bite, a banana short of a bunch. Now, let us see how long he can deflect, project and terrorize. The police operation at the Quiboloy compound showed the teeming millions who would die for Quiboloy and his administrator, Duterte, do not exist. After the disappointing son of god, welcome the non-performing owner of tiny real estate. #
