For several days in February, the plot thickened in the case of former AFP comptroller Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, as the Senate and House probe into his high highly suspicious plea bargain agreement stumbled upon a bigger corruption scandal that threatened to destroy the credibility of the entire Armed Forces.
The investigation was developing into a potential mystery novel — a huge corruption scandal erupts in the armed forces after two sons of a high-ranking general are caught entering the United States with $100,000 in undeclared money; millions of pesos and dollars are revealed to be stashed in several bank accounts of the general in the Philippines and in the US; the millions disappear from the banks a few days before the court orders that the accounts be frozen; after six years, the general enters into a suspicious plea deal that allowed him to post a P60,000 bail on a reduced charge of bribery; both the Senate and the House investigate the shady deal; a retired colonel who helped carried out the massive thievery by military generals decided to clear his conscience before he finally succumbs to heart failure and exposes what could be the biggest corruption scandal ever involving the highest-ranking generals and government officials of the past administration; a former AFP chief shoots himself to death before the tomb of his mother, and a nation grieves, both in mourning and scorn.
What better plot can a mystery novel have?
The nation waited with excitement and great expectation as more dirty laundry is spilled and more names are dragged. The people hoped that finally, the government would nail down some big fishes, put them in jail, and get back their ill-gotten wealth to perhaps help reduce the country’s huge budget deficit and foreign debt.
But as it turned out, all these were wishful thinking. How many investigations have been conducted in response to exposes of corruption in the high echelons of the military and the government, only to be forgotten when another headline-hogging news or scandal erupts? Whatever happened to the Jose Pidal investigations? Whatever happened to the Amari scandal? Whatever happened to the Diosdado Macapagal Highway investigations? Whatever happened to Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago’s exposes against former President Ramos? Whatever happened to the probes of the PIATCO deal, the millions of pesos lost in the purchase of Comelec tabulation computers, the PCSO and Pagcor scandals, the $320-billion NTN-ZTE broadband band scandal, the P720-million fertilizer fund mess, the “Hello Garci” scandal, the P3.1-billion irrigation project fund mess, the P5-billion swine scam, the P120-M Gintong Masagana Ani (GMA) fund scam, the P455-million ice-making machine scam, and many more corruption scandals that hogged the headlines for days, only to be superseded by another scandal?
It seems to me that the best defense against charges of corruption is to keep your silence and ride out the storm until another scandal or major story emerges. The government’s and the people’s memory seem so limited, the previous scandal is forgotten and left unresolved as soon as another one emerges. And that was precisely what Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her conspirators have been doing — ignoring the charges and riding out the storm. “Deadma” in local parlance.
Obviously, General Garcia and the other generals know the drill. Deny and keep mum, and wait until a new starlet reveals she had sex with half of the members of Congress for a fee. In an instant, the Senate and Congress will conduct committee hearings, media will banner the new scandal, and bury the military corruption story below the fold and ultimately to the Metro Section.
The suicide of General Angelo Reyes failed to do the job and managed only to slow down the probe, but when the Supreme Court suddenly and, to my fertile mind, suspiciously reversed an earlier stand to stop the House from impeaching Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, the headlines turned to Merci and the public’s attention was instantly diverted from the military corruption scandal. Was Merci made the sacrificial lamb?
And then China prepared to execute three Filipinos, the Taiwan deportation issue emerged, the Middle East uprisings exploded, and an earthquake trapped 14 Filipino workers, and suddenly the nation’s attention turned to the troubled overseas workers.
And all but forgotten, shelved, and swept again under the rag was another investigation of a major corruption scandal.
Has anything ever come out of these exposes and investigations? In 2004, at the height of the Garcia investigation, then US Ambassador Francis Ricciardonne, commenting on the Garcia case, said he hoped the Philippines “has reached a tipping point where a culture of acceptance of corruption as inevitable, is changing.” The ambassador said he hoped the government would not miss this “historic moment of opportunity” for the Philippines “to get things right and come out all the stronger.” He said he was hopeful the government would not be content with just conducting investigations.
“Are you going to let this die after a week of headlines and hearing? Or are the justice department, the Ombudsman, the AFP, all the institutions of Executive Branch, the Congress, the media – are you all going to press on this until you get to the bottom of it and you carry out and go as far as it goes, to expose the networks and bring the people to justice?” Ricciardone asked.
Apparently, Ricciardone was right in expressing his concerns. And the Filipino people, numbed by the numerous corruption scandals that have come and gone unresolved, will probably just let them go and move on, not realizing that with this heavy baggage of unresolved crimes, the nation cannot move forward.
We hope that both chambers of Congress and the Department of Justice will re-focus their sights on the military corruption scandal and treat its investigation not as an opportunity to grandstand or to exact revenge, but as an opportunity to wield the political will that was sorely lacking in the previous administration, and an opportunity to eliminate or at least minimize corruption, which is one of the major reasons the Philippines has been ranked the 11th most corrupt country in the world and one of the poorest nations in Asia.
To paraphrase the distinguished General Douglas MacArthur, it seems that like old soldiers, Philippine corruption scandals never die; they just fade away.