The Blacklists

Like a  Ludlum novel, the plot of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam thickens with the surfacing of different lists of people implicated in the misuse of appropriations. Former Senator, former police chief and former Metrocom operative, now ‘Yolanda’ rehabilitation czar, Panfilo Lacson purportedly has possession of such a list.  Secretary of Justice Leila De Lima allegedly procured one during a meeting with Ms. Janet Napoles just before her well-publicized (a security gaffe I suppose) surgery. And there’s the list of one Sandra Cam, president of an association of whistle blowers.

I don’t think anybody would be surprised if these lists contained almost everybody in government. The surprise probably would come to the political overlords after seeing their vassals doing more business on their own.

One can see the depths of corruption in governance where the population of whistle blowers increased by so many folds so much as to warrant an association. Thing is, aren’t whistle blowers supposed to be ‘below ground’ to protect them from harm. Isn’t an association much like painting a bull's eye on their foreheads? By the way, whatever happened to that guy who blew the whistle on the wholesale eradication of the Kuratong Baleleng claiming it as a rub out?

I could see the dilemma of the justice secretary (no pun intended), the evidence may probably be insufficient at this point so they’re looking at photographs, really? So why reveal the existence of such as a list? As for former Senator Lacson and Ms. Cam, I can only surmise on their intentions.

Should the list really be kilometric and evidences sufficient, what would the government do? Will there be sanctions, suspensions and frozen assets? Will governance be paralyzed or would it improve? Would the Veteran’s hospital be transformed into a penitentiary? As it is, the first batch of those accused have not even been touched. They are flying on holidays or what not, vilified but nonetheless free as birds. There is something wrong with accused and witnesses being able to just skip town. When will those accused ever get their day in court to clear their names? Would Ben Hur Luy reach the age of collecting on his SSS before anything on the PDAF scam really happen? Does the association of whistle blowers include SSS benefits?

When the scam first exploded,  the topic was in chock full coverage in various news reports and talks in the local hang outs, then came the televised blue ribbon with their supposedly slam dunk testimonies, after which the whole affair has now slid to the inside pages with nothing really happening. What new law has been formulated to mitigate misuse of appropriations?

And now we have the lists.

Would the PDAF scam go the way of the Maguindanao Massacre, which proceedings have been on the grind that witnesses and the whistle blowers as I read somewhere, have started to disappear before their testimonies are recounted in court.

However slow the wheels of justice roll, I think the maturity of Philippine electorate will manifest at the 2016 election. The PDAF scam has shown the way of the dynasties, how 2^nd generations continue their predecessor’s indiscretion. 

I hope we learned something.