E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Now, put him in jail
Sunday, 11 30, 2008
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Now, put him in jail
Sunday, 11 30, 2008
Former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante, stuck to his guns last Tuesday at the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing under Sen. Dick Gordon. He applied to himself the famous four-way test – and inwardly answered them.
Q: Is it the truth?
A: Yes, these are my own personal truths.
Q: Is it fair to all concerned?
A: Definitely, yes. The amounts were at P5 million for each recipient or proponent or whatever the hell you call them. Even if they didn’t ask for it. What could be fairer than that?
Q: Will it build goodwill and better relationships?
A: Sure. When money talks everybody starts to listen and learns to keep his mouth shut. Like what I myself am doing in this hearing.
A: Definitely, yes. The amounts were at P5 million for each recipient or proponent or whatever the hell you call them. Even if they didn’t ask for it. What could be fairer than that?
Q: Will it build goodwill and better relationships?
A: Sure. When money talks everybody starts to listen and learns to keep his mouth shut. Like what I myself am doing in this hearing.
Q: Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
A: Of course. Who do you think would be lording it over at Malacañang today, if it wasn’t?
A: Of course. Who do you think would be lording it over at Malacañang today, if it wasn’t?
Of course, the answers he gave to the senators were more eloquent and glib variations to the answers he was giving himself, so he got the surprise of his life when Sen. Ping Lacson could no longer bear a second longer the circumlocutory ride to which the former undersecretary was taking the senators.
Last Friday, Joc-joc did it again. And despite the claimed 12 signatures – out of 17 members – on the committee resolution directing his detention until he tells the truth before the committee, he managed to leave the Senate premises a free man.
What gives? Despite the truth out of the mouths of the regional executive directors of the Department of Agriculture (DA), all debunking the claims of Joc-joc, the committee still did not have the heart to implement its resolution. So, we will have to wait for the next hearing, when Joc-joc shall have been thoroughly rehearsed and coached and instructed on the fine art of weaving a web of deception and subterfuge.
We wrote last week about how to deal with an intelligent man like Joc-joc. And we were elated no end in hearing Lacson put forward the motion: “Mr. Chairman, we have here a liar, running rings around us. I move, pursuant to our rules, that this liar be put to jail immediately, to stay until he shall be forthcoming to us all.”
Joc-joc should learn from Jean Arnault. Or even if he heard about Arnault, he knows something else that the senators don’t know about precedents.
In 1950, Arnault was asked by the Senate special committee – then investigating the corruption in the purchase for P5,000,000 of the Buenavista and Tambobong Estates – a very simple question: “To whom was P440,000 of the purchase price given?” At first he refused to give a name. On collateral questions, he gave evasive answers. For his “insolent and contumacious defiance of the legitimate authority of the Senate,” Arnault was ordered detained at Bilibid in Muntinlupa until he shall have given a name. Subsequently, he executed an affidavit giving a name, different from what everyone in the Philippine islands already knew. The committee concluded that, still, he was lying to cover up a previous lie. The committee decided to continue his detention and confinement at Bilibid, until he shall have purged himself of contempt of the Senate.
Joc-joc knows who ordered P728 million to be spent for spiked fertilizers. That is the ultimate question he has been asked. Everyone from Batanes to Jolo knows who. Joc-joc refuses to give a name until now.
The scam has been detailed by the regional executive directors of the Agriculture department, with the help of Boy Barredo and the Commission on Audit. The noose on Joc-joc’s neck is tightening. In no time at all, he will be slapped with that resolution he deserves for trifling with the proceedings of the Senate.
Joc-joc, should Lacson’s motion be given due course, could find himself bedeviled by another cardiac condition – never mind a troubled conscience – when he gets a taste of the four walls of a real Philippine prison cell. The detention room of the Senate is much too comfortable for a man of his persuasion. Joc-joc would only enjoy immensely the Senate detention room, and treat it as a mere downgrade of the comforts of his Alabang mansion. He will not change his mind if he is kept by the Senate at the Senate. He will stick to his version of the story, until friendly circumstances and the gods above him work in confluence to have him released from detention.
But put him in Bilibid. There is something in the confines of Bilibid that should make Joc-joc find his epiphany. Aside from the damp walls and the congestion there, the resultant horror that can happen to his precious lily-white ass should make him think twice.
Of course, he could opt stay there for as long as he wants to protect whoever he wants to protect, and bear the loneliness and deprivation. It’s going to be a whole lot different from his experience inside a jail in the United Sates.
I had worked at the DA myself. And I handled similar funds, projects and programs that Joc-joc revels in having been custodian and/or implementor. I simply cannot fathom until now how such a once-respectable man like Joc-joc could be transformed overnight to a poster boy of what a public servant should not be. He failed the four-way test of the respectable international organization he was expected to lead. He failed every decent Filipino’s expectations of his finally seeing the light on his way to his own private Damascus. But then, what is failure if it means the continuing success of “all concerned?”
In the meantime, we keep hoping that Gordon and his committee would have some success the next time, with the resolution directing Joc-joc’s detention and confinement already signed by 12 members.
For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
Last Friday, Joc-joc did it again. And despite the claimed 12 signatures – out of 17 members – on the committee resolution directing his detention until he tells the truth before the committee, he managed to leave the Senate premises a free man.
What gives? Despite the truth out of the mouths of the regional executive directors of the Department of Agriculture (DA), all debunking the claims of Joc-joc, the committee still did not have the heart to implement its resolution. So, we will have to wait for the next hearing, when Joc-joc shall have been thoroughly rehearsed and coached and instructed on the fine art of weaving a web of deception and subterfuge.
We wrote last week about how to deal with an intelligent man like Joc-joc. And we were elated no end in hearing Lacson put forward the motion: “Mr. Chairman, we have here a liar, running rings around us. I move, pursuant to our rules, that this liar be put to jail immediately, to stay until he shall be forthcoming to us all.”
Joc-joc should learn from Jean Arnault. Or even if he heard about Arnault, he knows something else that the senators don’t know about precedents.
In 1950, Arnault was asked by the Senate special committee – then investigating the corruption in the purchase for P5,000,000 of the Buenavista and Tambobong Estates – a very simple question: “To whom was P440,000 of the purchase price given?” At first he refused to give a name. On collateral questions, he gave evasive answers. For his “insolent and contumacious defiance of the legitimate authority of the Senate,” Arnault was ordered detained at Bilibid in Muntinlupa until he shall have given a name. Subsequently, he executed an affidavit giving a name, different from what everyone in the Philippine islands already knew. The committee concluded that, still, he was lying to cover up a previous lie. The committee decided to continue his detention and confinement at Bilibid, until he shall have purged himself of contempt of the Senate.
Joc-joc knows who ordered P728 million to be spent for spiked fertilizers. That is the ultimate question he has been asked. Everyone from Batanes to Jolo knows who. Joc-joc refuses to give a name until now.
The scam has been detailed by the regional executive directors of the Agriculture department, with the help of Boy Barredo and the Commission on Audit. The noose on Joc-joc’s neck is tightening. In no time at all, he will be slapped with that resolution he deserves for trifling with the proceedings of the Senate.
Joc-joc, should Lacson’s motion be given due course, could find himself bedeviled by another cardiac condition – never mind a troubled conscience – when he gets a taste of the four walls of a real Philippine prison cell. The detention room of the Senate is much too comfortable for a man of his persuasion. Joc-joc would only enjoy immensely the Senate detention room, and treat it as a mere downgrade of the comforts of his Alabang mansion. He will not change his mind if he is kept by the Senate at the Senate. He will stick to his version of the story, until friendly circumstances and the gods above him work in confluence to have him released from detention.
But put him in Bilibid. There is something in the confines of Bilibid that should make Joc-joc find his epiphany. Aside from the damp walls and the congestion there, the resultant horror that can happen to his precious lily-white ass should make him think twice.
Of course, he could opt stay there for as long as he wants to protect whoever he wants to protect, and bear the loneliness and deprivation. It’s going to be a whole lot different from his experience inside a jail in the United Sates.
I had worked at the DA myself. And I handled similar funds, projects and programs that Joc-joc revels in having been custodian and/or implementor. I simply cannot fathom until now how such a once-respectable man like Joc-joc could be transformed overnight to a poster boy of what a public servant should not be. He failed the four-way test of the respectable international organization he was expected to lead. He failed every decent Filipino’s expectations of his finally seeing the light on his way to his own private Damascus. But then, what is failure if it means the continuing success of “all concerned?”
In the meantime, we keep hoping that Gordon and his committee would have some success the next time, with the resolution directing Joc-joc’s detention and confinement already signed by 12 members.
For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
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