I-contempt na yang mag-asawang Ligot

Wala tayong napala sa pagharap ni Mrs Ligot. Pa ligot ligot lang.

Dapat ma contempt na ang mag-asawa dahil kahit may karapatan sila o right against self incrimination hindi dapat inaabuso ang karapatan na ito na nagiging dahilan ng pagkaantala ng trabaho ng senado.

A blanket invocation of the right against self incrimination cannot be made by witnesses called to testify before the senate committees. It should be opposed vigorously.

Let the generals face the music

Government must take the cue from Rabusa’s testimony and dig deeper. If he is indeed telling the truth, his confession gives our investigators serious leads that if pursued may unearth more evidence to buttress his claims of plunder. Bank records must be subpoenaed and bank officials ought to cooperate or face criminal liability themselves for being in complicity with those who may have committed the crime of plunder. The anti-money laundering council too must move quickly to look into these accounts and check if indeed they exist, or existed in the past. These are pieces of documentary evidence that are very difficult to disprove because authentic documents cannot lie.

Rabusa has given the government the lead; it is the government’s turn to unearth what has to be unearthed—even if it means generals past and present will now have to face the music.

My statement on Comptroller Garcia's plea bargain: What a mockery!

On February 25, 2010, on the day we were supposed to be celebrating the anniversary of People Power, another midnight deal was being hatched by the office of the Ombudsman, government prosecutors (under the Arroyo regime), and the camp of comptroller Carlos Garcia for a plea bargain that would allow the plunderer to take home half of what he stole from the public coffers.

And, as former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo has pointed out, there’s another court handling Garcia’s case that has ordered the forfeiture of P175M in assets of the former general and that this would be nullified with the precedence of the plea bargain. That is already a difference of P40M, and yet we know that Garcia took for himself at least P303M.

Garcia should not be allowed to go away scot-free and enjoy the rest of his loot. He should not be allowed to take home even a cent of what he stole. He should rot in jail and serve as an example to all would-be plunderers. That would be a good example of a bad deed getting punished instead of setting a bad example of a court not doing its mandate.

Letting Garcia escape with this is a real mockery of our system and our laws—with the robber literally laughing his way to the bank! This is a mockery of the very ideals we fought for in EDSA!

Image Source: AFP