Whoever advised the impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona and his family to join the mass action at the Quirino Grandstand last Monday should be hang in the nearest post. The presence of the former chief magistrate in the rally did not only draw a sour response from the protesters, it also brought a bad momentum among the marchers. They cannot imagine that a mass action against the most corrupt system of government bureaucracy would be joined by a person who has been prosecuted and adjudged for his corruptible acts. Corona cannot simply delete his bad actuations among the citizen’s mind by simply joining the protest against the pork barrel last week. Is this a game of hide and seek where the hiders may become the seekers in the next game?

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We don’t know if the memory of our readers will serve right. But long before the multi-billion pork barrel scam, this paper already published several stories about its ramifications in the district level here. Don’t force us to go into the details because we are still trying to defect from political undertones. But our point is, the whistleblowers of that PDAF scam should learn to give to this paper the proper credit of the pork barrel scam especially in the “soft” projects. Can you remember about previous articles in this paper regarding dead persons who became the beneficiaries of the project, etcetera, etcetera. In fairness, it was the Bohol Sunday Post that came out with stories appertaining to the pork barrel scam before the so-called trusted man of Janet L. Napoles came out in the open to tell us about how the non-governmental organizations were used in this multi-billion money making by legislators.

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So expect from time to time the explanations to be given by senators and congressmen on how their PDAF are being spent wisely, effectively and efficiently reaching all the way to the benefit of their constituents. The common line for their explanation would be that it is the implementing agencies (IAs) which has the accountability on their accreditation of the non-governmental organization (NGOs). If the NGOs turned out to be like the once established and organized by Napoles, the legislators would say: our signatures and our staff were forged in the documents. We will have it investigated. If Napoles or his man Friday, Benhur Luy and his cohorts are being pictured with the senators and the congressmen in an affair, they will say there are not properly invited and came out that they have gate crashed. And so and so forth. In other words, they are not connected to Napoles in one way or the other.

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Take note of the events. After Napoles has been linked to the pork barrel scam and names and names of legislators are being implicated, Napoles tried to do a Houdini act and sought for forgiveness to the senators and congressmen in having their names implicated. Then came out the arrest warrant for her as filed by Luy, it has nothing to do with the pork barrel scam. It is the senate which probed the allegation. Senators investigating the senators. Whew. Then came the P100 M bounty from the President. Napoles surrendered to the President. The President’s men led by DILG Sec. Mar Roxas and Edwin Lacierda, arranged everything to make Napoles secure in her surrender untkl she was brought to the Makati City jail. Not a few say there was a special treatment. Then came out the story about Napoles to become a state witness. State witness of what? She surrendered because of another crime, not the pork barrel scandal. Come on, the script is not being read well by the players in the conspiracy plot.

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Just last week, we disclosed that we will not delve into local politics because the honeymoon period is not yet over. Well, one week just passed and the honeymoon period is already over. As we have pointed out, we will not discuss about any configuration whether in the national or local level politics because our intention will be the prime suspect being a political animal. Well, time quietly passes by. So this means that we shall go beyond that promise and start shooting from this corner.

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Postcript: We are just amplifying about the pork barrel of the president, the senators and congressmen. What about the local government officials including the local chief executives, the presiding officers of the local sanggunian and the board members and councilors? The shares of the local chief executives on intelligence funds, the 20% development fund and other fund including their hiring of bloated casual employees upon which the initiative and brilliance of the local budget officers rests upon. Ah, that’s one good issue to start with next week. More when we return, stay tuned.