http://www.malaya.com.ph/01262010/edmata.html
HAVE WE survived a low dishonest decade of the corrupt and faux presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?
Can the next decade redeem our hopes for a decade of truth, of national unity and economic progress, of bipartisanship in politics? Or, are we so overly optimistic that the polls in May would finally put an end to the dirty political tactics, the mudslinging, the character assassination, the lies and half-truths which now mark the hotly-contested race to the Presidency?
The official campaign has not even started, and yet we are already seeing the political exchanges of baseless charges, insinuations, invectives, diatribes and falsehood, among the candidates for the presidency, the vice-presidency and the senate and their partisans, especially between the two leading presidential aspirants Manny Villar and Noynoy Aquino.
Manny Villar, the standard bearer of the Nacionalista Party, appears to be the main target of political detractors who are claiming that he is the "secret presidential candidate" of Gloria Arroyo.
Apparently, this is based on perceptions that he was not hitting the GMA administration at all. But a quick check of the congressional archives clearly show that when Villar was Senate President, major probes of corruption cases against Arroyo prospered. These cases included the "Hello Garci" electoral scandal and the ZTE-NBN controversy. The truth is that Villar and his fellow Nacionalistas in the Senate were at the forefront of such moves that pinned down GMA and her cohorts. And there were other cases when Villar, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Order, led the inquiry into the jueteng payola controversy.
One of Villar’s critics from the Liberal Party tried to call on Villar to end the probe due to pressures from Malacañang. Villar still proceeded with the investigation, but it cost him the Senate Presidency.
Significantly, the politically motivated attacks against Villar came soon after his declaration of his bid to seek the presidency on September 2008. He was investigated at a time when he was leading in SWS and Pulse Asia surveys. An ethics complaint was filed against him, and those who pushed the investigation were the very same senators, including presidential hopefuls, that conspired in forcing him to resign as Senate President.
That’s the same ethics complaint that was investigated by the Senate Committee of the Whole chaired by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. Despite a majority of the 22-member Senate previously seeking the dismissal of the complaint, the yet-to-be approved committee report has been leaked to the media.
What’s puzzling is why Senate President Ponce Enrile, who had previously confirmed that Villar had asked him to insert the funds for the C-5 project (the basis of the ethics complaint), but he himself said there was no irregularity involved as the request was only meant to ensure the speedy completion of the road project.
Not only this, a perceptive political observer noted that Enrile is quick to defend his ally Senator Ping Lacson, who’s facing double murder charges, one of Villar’s political detractors that first initiated the case against Villar, but Enrile appears to be quick in rendering judgment on Villar in spite of what his own report says "there is no evidence that Villar had directly participated in the ‘overpricing’ of his properties."
Well, it’s unfortunate that the pursuit of political ends has superseded the search for truth.
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A ‘Political Hit’… I just read an interesting revelation that the leaking of the Senate Committee of the Whole’s report on the ethics case against Senator Villar was allegedly "railroaded" as "a Liberal Party-ordered political hit on the Nacionalista Party’s presidential candidate."
This was exposed in a press statement of former Congressman and Iloilo Vice-Governor Rolex T. Suplico. "It’s a purely and simply a politically-motivated hatchet job."
Apparently, he based his revelation on Sen. Francis Pangilinan’s own admission that he signed the Senate ethics committee report upon his party’s instruction. And this was contained in his text message to reporters last Monday in which he admitted that he had somersaulted after the party (LP) "took an official stand on the issue."
Pangilinan, who’s the campaign manager of the LP senatorial slate, did sign an earlier Senate resolution that exonerated Villar of the ethics charges filed Villar’s political detractors.
"Pangilinan is admitting that it’s a partisan act. Partisano s’ya dito. Hindi senator. Kasi siya mismo ang sumunod lang siya sa utos ng kanyang mga boss sa Liberal Party," Suplico said. "What Pangilinan is saying is that it is an act of political salvaging, meant to take Villar out of the race after a recent survey showed he was on track to overtake Sen. Noynoy Aquino."
And Suplico added that Pangilinan’s admission belies any pretense of impartiality and ‘removes the fig leaf of fairness in the conduct of the said investigation."
I find quite politically interesting ex-Governor of Iloilo Suplico’s obviously tongue-in-cheek revelation that "It is a Made-in-Cubao report," referring to the area in Quezon City, where the LP is headquartered in a building in Araneta commercial district owned by the family of Sen. Mar Roxas, vice presidential running mate of Noynoy Aquino.
Well, here we can clearly see that the propaganda mills of a certain political camp have begun to churn out all sorts of untruths even before the start of the official campaign period for the presidency in May.
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