A prominent Tagbilaran City crusader accused Congressmen Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Eladio Jala of amassing money in their terms of office. The first two were sad to have gotten three hundred million pesos each while Jala made four hundred fifty million. These came from their pork barrel funds and the amounts that they had were stashed in certain banks under their names, names of their children or perhaps close relatives. It may be also under fictitious names. The crusader, Atty Victor de la Serna dared each of them to sign waivers so their bank deposits, if they have any may be made public. According to a printed ad in the Post, the money came from the purchase of obsolete, second hand computers priced at P80.000 each while the actual price was P8,000 or less. If this is true, we wonder how this passed the Commission on Audit. It could be that there is a way around the COA or this office does not know something on the transaction. It is also bandied about that for every project released, a congressman gets ten percent of the total cost. Therefore, a congressman is expected to pocket millions in a single term. It is no wonder then that a congressional candidate is willing to spend millions to get elected when the salary is only in thousands.

Past congressmen like Esteban Bernido, Teodoro Galagar and Isidro Zarraga had not been accused of getting rich. The only thing Bernido can boast of is the education of his children. Galagar died a poor man while Zarraga does not appear to be opulent. It could be surmised that these people are either not prone to graft or the regimes during their tenure were not conducive to graft. Assuming that they may have the opportunity to steal but they did not choose to steal. Or if they may have stolen at all, they had hidden their wealth well. Since their descendants did not sport wealth there was nothing stolen. These days hiding ill-gotten wealth are not easy. Any elective official from the president of the republic to the barangay level must file a Statement of Assets and Liabilities during assumption of office. There are claims that; along with the SAL is a waiver for the Ombudsman to look into the bank accounts of those officials. Then there is the Anti Money Laundering Act, which allows banks to look into a transaction or series of transactions involving amounts from P500, 000 or bigger. All banks and financial institutions may be compelled to comply with the strict record keeping, reporting and know your customer requirements. To hide large amounts of money, those congressmen will have to circumvent the laws.

The crusading spirit must have prompted Atty. Victor de la Serna to launch this expose. Others had done such deed for political mileage. Cong. Alan Peter Cayetano did accuse the First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo of keeping a secret account in a German bank and asked him for a waiver to disclose the account. When the First Gentleman obliged he then asked for waivers of all Arroyos accounts. The original issue was that German bank, which Cayetano identified and when he was called he raised other questions. The accusation did not prove anything but earned Cayetano enough political mileage to get nominated as opposition senatorial candidate. In this case, Atty de la Serna is not running for any office as of now so he does not need political mileage. Neither does Boy Jala. Only Congressmen Chatto and Cajes. They may choose not to dignify the accusation. Anyway the burden of the proof is with the accuser. However, politics and money cannot be kept apart so any Juan, Pedro and Pablo may conclude that they did pocketed cash. They are placed in a situation, which damns them if they do and damns them anyway if they don't answer that charges. Their conscience may be clean but clean conscience never won an election.