A dodger’s denouement (Bolante)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

A dodger’s denouement
Sunday, 12 07, 2008

The dodgers’ melodrama that former Agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante has masterfully staged at the Senate is headed toward its denouement.

Last Thursday Joc-joc was finally served the order directing him to be detained at the Senate premises until he shall have purged himself of contempt of the Senate. But his detention at the Senate could be just temporary. Confinement at a less comfortable enclosure, like the Pasay City jail or at the Bilibid in Muntinlupa, awaits Joc-joc even before his conviction by a court of law, and very well ahead of the conclusion of the hearings at the Senate.

So it all depends on the tune he’s going to sing tomorrow before the Senate blue ribbon committee.

Joc-joc has brought upon himself the fast tracking of his detention without a previous conviction for a crime. His lies, prevarications and equivocations have been heavily evident. Most of all, his cavalier refusal to answer questions about the fertilizer scam betrayed the contempt he had toward his inquisitors at the Senate. Although the committee found eight instances of lying, evasiveness or refusal to answer, a keen observer of the proceedings identified 21, foremost of which is the following question which still begs the truthful reply: “Was the President involved in the farm inputs-farm implements (FIFI) program?”

To ferret out the truth, it may help to ask Joc-joc to confirm (or deny) the truth of the following past events: 1) The President held office at the DA head office to oversee the agricultural programs. 2) The President was meeting with him on a daily basis about the funding of the FIFI program. 3) In Cabinet meetings he was regularly reporting on the status of the fund releases. 4) He was appointed to the DA for the sole purpose of having control over the funds of the department. 5) It was he who engineered the transfer of Quedancor to the Office of the President. 6) In the implementation of the FIFI program, he effectively shut out the participation of several regular DA staff who were critical of the way funds were being disbursed. 7) He removed in the form MoA the provision about foundations’ and LGUs’ compliance with the Procurement Law. 8) He secured the release of the Saro and the NCA for P728 million for the FIFI program on the same day. 9) He was the de facto secretary of Agriculture.

I would not blame Joc-joc if he develops a perpetual grudge against Sen. Ping Lacson.

It appears that Ping has become a hero to those who have religiously followed the hearings on the fertilizer scam. Ping had asked incisive questions that elicited self-destructive answers from Joc-joc. Ping had artfully negated Joc-joc’s circumlocutory answers with piercing rhetorical questions and astute leading questions. And more lawyerly than most, Ping had made Joc-joc squirm every time one lie after another came unraveled.

And it was Ping’s motion to detain Joc-joc which underscores Ping relentless effort to get the name of the top dog who ordered Joc-joc to parcel out P728 million worth of fertilizers – and scrape the bottom of the barrel to unmask who among our honorable politicians pigged out on the fertilizer trough.

Jose Barredo, Jr., the self-confessed factotum of Marites Aytona, the runner of Joc-joc, has exposed the elaborate web that Joc-joc spun to assure the 30-30-40 division of the spoils from the scam. He risked a fate similar to Marlene Esperat’s and lay his life on the line, with assurances of protection from Ping. After Barredo, other witnesses may have already approached Ping, but while their revelations have yet to be reduced to affidavit form, these witnesses will be incognito until then. When they finally take the witness stand, Joc-joc will be in for a lot more unpleasant surprises, his steadfast silence notwithstanding.

It looks like Ping has put to good use his training in investigation. His eye for details otherwise discarded by others enabled him to pounce on the admission by one witness that he, a physical education graduate, went on to land a top position at the Government Service Insurance System at the behest of Joc-joc, after he collaborated with Joc-joc in the implementation of the smelly FIFI program. That exposed Joc-joc’s power to reward accomplices for a job well done or to keep co-conspirators silent.

Tomorrow, at his third appearance before the Senate blue ribbon committee under Sen. Richard Gordon, Joc-joc will face yet again his nemesis. Joc-joc’s answers, or his invocation of the right against self-incrimination, are to be expected. In that event, those who remember the case of Jean Arnault in 1950 expect no less than the Senate finally coming down hard on Joc-joc with a resolution committing Joc-joc to the Bilibid in Muntinlupa, to be released only after he shall have absolved himself of contempt of the Senate.

If Joc-joc still sings the same tune he has been singing at the Senate in the last two hearings, his detention could very well be downgraded to worse quarters. And at his detention cell in Muntinlupa, he could not even hope to sing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” as the Senate will adjourn on Dec. 19 and resume sessions only on Jan. 17, 2009. That should be a long time for Joc-joc to enjoy the unsolicited and unhealthy company of rogues, rascals and reprobates like him.

The drama at the Senate will pause then and there, only to resume, if at all, when Joc-joc shall have learned that it does not pay to lie, to be evasive, or to remain tight-lipped.

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