Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Jail Joc-joc

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Jail Joc-joc
Sunday, 11 16, 2008

A colleague once said: “It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”

I would not know if it was an original thought or he had memorized it from a book of quotes and waited for the right occasion to spring the quip on me. I was reminded of the quote only because of the Joc-joc hearings.

When a congressman, governor or mayor asks for funds from the Department of Agriculture (DA), the request is evaluated against a map, which shows the particular produce, the hectarage dedicated to such produce, and the particular needs of particular areas. The following (stupid) questions then need to be answered:

(1) Is there really a need? If one is a mayor of an urban area that has not even a hectare of agricultural soil, it would be downright highly irregular if his request would be endorsed by the DA for funding.

(2) If there is a need, how can that need be best addressed? Fertilizer need not be the answer for all the requests. And even if it is, it need not be just one type of fertilizer. There is fertilizer for rice, for citrus, for orchids. Or perhaps fertilizer for plastic trees at the provincial capitol.

The need may be answered not only by fertilizer, but by other inputs. It could be seeds, seedlings, threshers, etcetera. Or perhaps it could be what is known as “greenbacks” – which definitely is a very healthy input.

(3) How much funding is needed? Against the agricultural map, one then makes a computation of how much it would take to make votes fall out of trees in order to keep the recipient happy and his mouth shut.

Given this background, Sen. Ping Lacson hit it right on the head when he asked why there were similar allocations to choice politicians regardless of their respective areas and needs.

But the question must not have made sense to the addled brain of Joc-joc that could only give, at best, a muddled reply.

And because no rational answer was forthcoming from Joc-joc, the only conclusion one could make is: the money was used for the greening of the political landscape, and not to address particular agricultural concerns.

It is not only the timing of the release of the funds that supports this, but the political affiliations of the proponents: They are all supporters of the candidate Joc-joc worked for. Lacson cited Iloilo, for example, where everyone – with the exception of then Rep. Rolex Suplico who was supporting Lacson for president – was included in the list of recipients attached to the Saro of Feb. 3, 2004.

Watching Joc-joc evade the questions, or being completely without any answer to questions, or seeing him give an outright lie, I wanted to weep for our senators who now had so much responsibility resting on their shoulders. It is hard to overstate the amount of interrogation and persuasion that must be done to make Joc-joc cough up the truth after three years of evasive flight.

Then I wanted to scream, wishing my voice could be heard by a senator who could make a motion to have Joc-joc detained until he becomes forthright with his answers. I am sure the motion would have been carried unanimously.

But, alas, the senators were unanimously soft on Joc-joc. They even got to joke with him. So, until the next hearing, Joc-joc will get to enjoy the comforts of his house in Alabang.

When Joc-joc denied that he knows anyone higher than the Agriculture secretary who is involved in the approval of P728 million for fertilizers, he was obviously lying. No one gets that amount in a trice, especially if the Saro and the NCA get to be released on the same day, in the heat of the election campaign.

When he denied having talked to anyone from the Administration when he was in the US fending off his repatriation to the Manila, Joc-joc was prevaricating.

When he claimed to have just received a call from the PMS that he was being considered for the position of DA undersecretary without anyone being responsible for his nomination, he was dodging the point, and confusing the issue so as to avoid telling the truth.

When he denied ever knowing a certain Evelyn, he was equivocating, saying one thing and meaning another whose ambiguity was misleading. Lacson fully well knows that Joc-joc had been meeting with this Evelyn, who incidentally was the supplier of the fertilizers.

When he could not identify Marlene Esperat whose photograph was shown to him, Joc-joc was lying through his teeth. How could he fail to remember the face of someone who has filed a graft case against him?

When Joc-joc remembers details of a change of priorities of a proponent, but conveniently forgets the details surrounding the preparation of a memorandum to authorize a regional director to sign agreements, he was rationalizing, to put his own behavior in the most favorable possible light.

When he said he insisted to be deported to Manila but nonetheless fought off extradition by pursuing his petition for asylum, he was fabricating an elaborate yarn about his manifestation of willingness to cooperate with the investigation into the scam.

In the 1950s, the Senate committed a certain Jean Arnault to the confines of the Bilibid Prisons for refusing to give answers regarding alleged corruption in the handling of the Tambobong Estate. The present-day Senate rules on investigation are clear. A witness may be detained in such place designated by the Senate if “he refuses to testify or to answer a proper question… or testifying, testifies falsely or evasively.”

Last Thursday, Joc-joc refused to give answers. He was evasive, and worse, he was lying because he had to.

Jail him then.

Do I hear a senator putting the appropriate motion on the table?


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