MANILA
Under pressure from an angry public, the government here has charged three senators, several former congressmen, members of their staffs, and the alleged mastermind of serial theft of the people’s money with plunder, a non-bailable offense.
The big fish among the accused include Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, a controversial political figure whose long career dates back to being the martial law administrator of the infamous Ferdinand Marcos. For 14 years in the 1970s and 80s, Marcos ruled the Philippines as a dictator, aided by crafty operators like Enrile. Enrile is a savvy lawyer who has successfully navigated the murky workings of Philippine politics, albeit in a career that has seen many ups and downs. Now in the twilight of his colorful political saga, his current fortunes teeter on a slippery slope.
The charges against Enrile et al stem from a scam that has allegedly diverted P10 billion over ten years of public money to bogus projects through allocations taken from legislators’ pork barrel, a system of project allocations patterned after a funding mechanism in the US Congress. As alleged by whistle-blowers who used to work for the alleged mastermind, a businesswoman named Janet Lim Napoles, the scheme entailed fake projects dreamed up by Napoles and her staff that were presented to legislators for funding through their pork barrel. In the Philippines, senators and congressmen are allocated millions of funds that they could earmark for projects theoretically meant to promote economic growth, usually in their districts (in the case of congressmen who represent such districts). Senators, who don’t represent specific areas, can designate any area(s) to receive funding from their pork barrel.
According to the whistle-blowers, P10 billion in the people’s money has been disbursed but only 10 percent of that actually went to the projects. Fifty percent of the project funds went to the sponsoring legislator, 10 percent to the project (when there was an actual project), and 40 percent to the mastermind, Napoles. Even when there were actual project beneficiaries, what they received were unusable farm inputs (like watered-down liquid fertilizers or community peace-keeping kits like whistles, that were invariably overpriced several hundred times). In sum, according to the whistle-blowers, it was a total scam, a money-making venture that fleeced the people of their money through crooked legislators.
Now some of these legislators will soon be on the dock. The Department of Justice here has sent to the Ombuds(wo)man “truckloads” of evidence linking Enrile, other legislators and some of their office staff to the scam. (The current Ombudsman is a respected former Supreme Court associate justice, Conchita Carpio-Morales.) According to the charges, the legislators approved the funding for the bogus projects, with the money being coursed through fake non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were “founded” by Napoles that existed on paper only. In other words, Napoles allegedly developed a system or network of non-existent NGOs that sought project funding from legislators’ pork barrel. Once approved for funding, it was open season of cherry-picking for Napoles, who seemed to have enriched herself while throwing bread crumbs to her staff who did all the dirty work.
Enrile’s co-accused senators are Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Bong” Revilla, Jr., both actors who still star in movies even though they’re already senators. The other accused are members of the charged senators’ staffs, usually their chiefs of staff or other such senior staff.
The three senators have denied any complicity with Napoles in her scam. Enrile has even gone to the extent of disowning his chief of staff’s alleged actions, which include receiving millions of pesos in cash as the alleged share of the senator in the scam’s profits. Enrile’s chief of staff, named Gigi Reyes, who is controversial in her own right for her reported closeness to Enrile, has flown out of the country before the charges could be elevated to the office of the Ombudswoman. Some other congressional staff included in the charge sheet have also flown the coop. Whether the government can make these accused to return to the Philippines to face the charges is a big question mark.
This pork barrel scam could be a historic case in the Philippine justice system. We are talking big fish here. Senator Enrile, for one, has been a major player in Philippine politics. From the notoriety he earned from his close association with the dictator Marcos, Enrile moved on to become a force to be reckoned with in politics because he is savvy with the law and he’s adept at attacking and counter-attacking. He’s exceptionally good at self-preservation (he survived Marcos, after all).
Enrile surely knew that his place in Philippine political history has been uncertain, precisely because of his close involvement in one of the country’s darkest times, the martial law period when people’s rights were denied, many lives were lost or scarred, and left a lot of personal and political wounds unhealed. But Enrile survived it all, managing to stay in politics by occupying key positions. No doubt knows how to play the game of politics, even its dirty side.
Recently, Enrile fortuitously chanced upon an opportunity to polish off the tarnish on his reputation. Last year, President Benigno Aquino III wanted to kick out Chief Justice Renato Corona, an appointee and favorite of then President Gloria Arroyo. Aquino saw Corona as a stumbling block to his program of reforms because of the latter’s close association with Arroyo. Aquino perceived Corona as Arroyo’s protector and defender on the high court who was duty-bound (to Arroyo) to shield Arroyo from prosecution.
And so Aquino sanctioned Corona’s impeachment, a quasi-judicial process that is mandated by the Constitution to be decided by the Senate. It was Enrile’s luck to be senate president at that time, and so he ended up being the presiding officer of the Corona impeachment court. Enrile, through his mastery of the law, emerged as one of the stars of the impeachment proceedings, earning him plaudits from the people. His reputation received a much-needed polishing, resulting in high numbers in poll surveys.
The serendipitous uptick in Enrile’s popularity gave him an opening to refurbish his potential standing in history. And he played it to the hilt, hitting bookstores with a biography that, not quite incidentally, revised his role in Marcos’s dictatorship, putting a new sign on his actions during that dark chapter. In all, Enrile succeeded in coming out smelling like roses. Now he had his chance to earn a good place in history and place himself on legacy mode until the end of his career and life.
But, maybe he’s fated to be controversial. After his glory days as presiding officer of the Corona impeachment court (Corona was convicted and ousted as chief justice), he would get entangled in silly snafus and contretemps with his Senate colleagues, again putting his reputation in jeopardy.
And then, the Napoles pork barrel scam hit the news, and Enrile is said to be a major participant in it. The sh.t hit the fan. He will fight back, of course, because he’s accustomed to trying times such as this one. Indeed his life has been a series of such battles. He knows how to navigate the labyrinths of power and surely he will come up with a crafty defense.
How Enrile will come out of his latest, and probably last, major political battle is something worth watching. It will be bloody (madugo in Filipino street language).
