GLOBAL BALITA

Telltale Signs
by Rodel Rodis
 
The Bible exhorts Christians to “love the sinner but hate the sin.” We are told to hate sin by refusing to take part in it and by condemning it when we see it. We are taught that sin is not to be excused or taken lightly. We are advised to love the sinner by speaking the truth in a spirit of love and to hate the sin by refusing to condone, ignore or excuse it. But that’s the theory.

For the last five years, especially after the “Hello Garci” tapes exposed the massive cheating in the 2004 presidential elections, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been excoriated, vilified and reviled by politicians, media commentators and the Filipino people in poll after poll which rate her the worst president in Philippine history.

But this revulsion has been largely concentrated on her personally. Her critics point to her lavish celebration of her wedding anniversary in New York with a $20,000 bill paid for by Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez. This is an impeachable offense, critics charge, because Philippine law ( RA 6713)  provides that “public officials shall lead modest lives appropriate to their positions and income and that they shall not engage in extravagant or ostentatious displays of wealth.”

Pres. Arroyo has also been accused of “betrayal of public trust” for approving the National Broadband Network (NBN) telecommunications deal with China’s ZTE Corp. that was allegedly overpriced by at least $130-M which, critics charge, was supposed to be divided between First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and former COMELEC chair Jun Abalos as a reward for his role in securing her election victory in the 2004 elections. But the NBN-ZTE deal was scrapped by Pres. Arroyo after it was exposed.

Polls show Pres. Arroyo with a -39% approval rating which one obtains by subtracting the number of people who disapprove of her from the number of those who approve of her.

And yet former Pres. Joseph Estrada enjoys an 18+ % favorable rating despite the fact that he was convicted of plunder beyond a shadow of a doubt after witnesses like his childhood friend, Carlos Arellano, whom Estrada appointed president of the Social Security System (SSS), testified that Estrada pressured him to invest $20-M (P900-M pesos) in Belle Corporation stocks owned by a crony. Another Estrada appointee, Federico Pascual, president of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), also testified that he was similarly instructed by Estrada to invest $25-M (P1.1-B pesos) in Belle stocks which turned out to be worthless.

Belle Corporation executives testified that Estrada’s commission for facilitating government investments in Belle amounted to $4-M (P189-M pesos) which they paid to Estrada crony Jaime Dichavez who deposited the money in the bank account of “Jose Velarde” at the Equitable Bank where a bank manager, Clarissa Ocampo, testified that she personally witnessed Estrada sign the name “Jose Velarde” to withdraw those funds from his account.

Despite this overwhelming evidence of his personal corruption, Estrada is still loved by the people who apparently do not have any problem with the fact that 2-B pesos of SSS and GSIS funds have evaporated.

Presidential candidate Manny Villar enjoys an even higher favorable rating despite the fact that a majority of his fellow senators have charged him with making the Filipino people suffer a loss in the total amount of P6.22 billion pesos ($129.6-M). 
 
As senator and as chair of the Senate’s Finance Committee, whose approval is needed for government funds to be disbursed, Villar caused the Department of Public Works and Highways to build a Las Pinas-Paranaque link highway (C5) that was diverted to pass through 23 subdivisions owned by Villar, substantially increasing the land values of his properties. Villar also caused the government to pay three times more than the market price to buy his land for the roads that would pass through his subdivisions.
 
Another issue raised against Villar concerned the purchase by his company (Northwinds Prime) of Santa Lucia Realty property in Norzaragay, Bulacan for 120-M pesos. The property that was purchased turned out to be fraudulently reconstituted titles (the ancestral lands of the Dumagats) which Villar supporters say was not Villar’s fault (they point to the Puyats for doing this). But the problem is that Villar then mortgaged the fraudulently titled lands to his bank, Capitol Development Bank, for P150-M pesos (a P30-M profit) and the Villar-owned bank then used the lands as collateral for a P1.5-B pesos emergency loan from the government’s Bangko Sentral which it then defaulted on.
 
When it comes to the principles of accountability, transparency, integrity and credibility (ATIC), Villar’s defenders point to the fact that Villar has never been convicted of fraud. Of course, neither was Ferdinand Marcos and, for that matter, neither was Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
 
But while Arroyo as a sinner is hated, corruption as a sin is generally tolerated if not embraced, at least when it comes to Estrada and Villar.
 
(Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800).