Strategic Perspective
René B. Azurin
Friday, October 4, 2013
Bumbling justice
IN ONE of the many now-classic scenes from the hilarious Pink Panther movies, bumbling Inspector Clousseau -- the character created by the late comic genius Peter Sellers -- directs his attention to a blind musician with a begging “minkee” [monkey] and demands to see their “leesanz” [license] because “City Ordinance 47B prohibits the playing of a musical instrument in a public place for the purpose of commercial enterprise.” While so engaged, he is completely oblivious to the fact that armed men are robbing the bank just behind him. Finally turning around, he notices that the robbers have dropped their bag of loot as they are getting into their getaway car so he helpfully picks it up and hands it to them, then directs traffic for their escape. The robbed banker then rushes out with a gun in pursuit and Clousseau alertly hits him with his baton.
That scene of bumbling, misdirected, and ineffectual law enforcement seems to so accurately portray our own law enforcers’ efforts at bringing to justice the criminal robbers of billions of pesos in pork barrel funds.
Much is made of the fact that our Department of Justice finally filed last Monday -- 59 days after the scam was first exposed (in the Inquirer) on July 12 -- plunder and graft cases against three senators, five former congressmen, eight staff members of the aforementioned legislators, six officers of government corporations, nine other government employees, six non-government organization (NGO) officials, and the alleged mastermind of the scam, Janet Lim-Napoles. The disturbing thing is, however, that no one has yet been arrested and put in jail. Lawyers, doubtless, would rationalize this with references to prescribed criminal procedure but we citizens should properly expect that a robber who has been determined to have committed a bank robbery would be immediately arrested, booked, arraigned, and kept in jail (unless released on bail) while he (she) is tried in Court for his (her) crime. How can the massive robbery of public funds be any different?
To ask the question that the Filipino public is asking, why has no one yet been arrested and incarcerated? Moreover, the Filipino public -- who are the true victims of this crime -- want to see senators and congressmen in jail. Not just some low level minions.
The bumbling of our law enforcement officials is actually more ridiculous than that of the always dignified, totally serious, and absolutely sincere Inspector Clousseau. Talking -- seemingly unrestrainedly and even boastfully -- every day for weeks to media about what they were doing, what they were finding in their “truckloads of evidence,” and what they were going to do, they have completely revealed their case to those who they would accuse and, thereby, allowed these people to appropriately plan how they would deal with the matter. Accordingly, certain key individuals -- like staff members of some legislators -- who dealt directly with the persons who released kickbacks to the senators and congressmen (and probably signed the liquidation receipts) have already left the country for parts unknown so as (presumably) to cut the links between legislators and Napoles. Our bumbling law enforcers are, in effect, handing the robbers the plundered loot and helping them to get away.
Indeed, the most guilty persons in this massive plunder of public funds are the senators and congressmen because it was their avaricious desire for making money off their pork barrel allocations that engendered the entire system of fake projects, bogus beneficiaries, and phony NGOs. This is actually common knowledge and certain observers (like me) have been pointing this out for years. In fact, most Filipinos are convinced that -- with only a small handful of exceptions -- ALL the senators and congressmen who have availed of pork barrel funds through the years have taken kickbacks and squirreled at least part of these public funds away in their personal bank accounts. It is misdirection to think otherwise and we citizens should instantly dismiss the obnoxious efforts of these legislators to deny their involvement and then lay the blame on relatively low-ranked bureaucrats. Everyone knows that politicos will sell the public a bridge even where there is no river in sight.
So, again, when will we see all these senators and congressmen charged and in jail? Unfortunately, no reasonable observer of Philippine affairs entertains any real hope that this development will ever come to pass.
In the first year of his term, President Aquino was quoted as saying, “The core principle of this [meaning, his] reform program is this -- the guilty should be made accountable because if not, it would like we have kept the door open for anyone who would want to abuse our people... We are all working for a new Philippines, one where there is equality, where whoever does wrong, whatever his status in life may be, is punished, a country where justice rules.” Lacking a clear understanding of the need for reform that is INSTITUTIONAL and without an adequate strategic plan for building a just, equitable, and progressive society, Mr. Aquino has “kept the door open for anyone who would want to abuse our people.” His deeds do not match his words.
Justice does not rule in this country. Nothing Mr. Aquino has done in the past three years has changed this tragic fact. Law enforcement remains comically ineffectual.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle thinks that pork barrel corruption “is a cultural problem” and can only be “eradicated through moral transformation and behavioral change to be led by parents in their households.” It’s a popular but ultimately naïve view. Cultural values follow the incentive structure that prevails in a society and determines which individuals will prosper and thrive. Without first changing the structure of incentives, values will not change. Students of history and sociology know this. If greed and plunder continue to be rewarded by the society because the justice system does not work, then there is no hope of changing our culture of corruption. We must fix our justice system first. We cannot let senators and congressmen not go to jail for the heinous crimes they have been committing for years against the Filipino people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment