The coven

The rat is the first of a dozen animals that heeded the call of the lord Buddha, riding on top of the ox while fording the river. Upon reaching the bank of the river, the quick-witted rat jumped off the back of the heavy mule, and sprinted first to reach Buddha, or so Oriental legend says.

Thus it is that the Year of the Rat has been identified with opportunity and beginning. For this benighted country though, ruled by a "pig" using a menagerie of snakes and rats and whatever else, the year looks not as one of opportunity or beginning, but more of the same.

***

I had already written an article about the events at the House of Crocodiles turned rats and snakes. It was peppered with inside stories about the maneuvers and the (again!) bags and bags of cash that moved around. Speaker Joe could not believe that his pet crocodiles had turned into snakes, and till the last day, he would not believe that his "faithful" had deserted his sinking hold like rats. But between the finished article and its submission yesterday, something happened.

Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., "Jun" to his dozen brothers and sisters, to his wife and to his bosom friend Romulo Neri, was shanghaied upon arrival from Hong Kong, to only God and the devils who kidnapped him know where.

They had gotten to his friend Romy, who hid again where only God and the devils know where for the past five days, and Neri must have ratted on what Jun knew about the stinking deal of the decade, the uselessly expensive NBN and the ZTE which forked 75 million dollars in advance payments for booty that was supposed to reach close to 200 million dollars.

Jun's revelations, evinced by a conscience that bothered him (for silence in the face of evil was evil itself, or so his faith and parents taught him), would have put the half-truths of Neri before the Senate on the dock. Neri confided everything to him, and I mean everything, inside and out. Because he was trusted and he understood telecoms more than his friend Romy, he sat in the negotiations that led to a 130 million dollar project become 330 million dollars, and how it was that his scandalized friend could not resist the pressure by who else, to finally sign endorsement by his NEDA to China's Export-Import Bank. With Romy's letter in her bag, his president flew to Boao, and in Hainan witnessed the signing of the supply contract between ZTE and her DOTC.

Tuesday afternoon, Jun Lozada left on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong, expecting the Senate's sergeant-at-arms to take him in custody. His family knew that the Senate was to take custody of him. He should have arrived a day earlier, along with three senators, one from the majority and two from the minority, but just as the senators were about to fly to Hong Kong on Sunday morning, Lozada changed his mind about such a high-profile escort. He did not want the truth in his forthcoming testimony to be "tainted" by perceptions that his "escorts" influenced him to say what he had to say. And so he decided to slip quietly in, just asking his brothers to make sure the Senate's sergeant-at-arms would fetch him. Siblings did more. They asked a priest to be with them. Was it foreboding that a priest had to be on hand, or was it just prayerful faith?

Once more, someone blabbered the "quiet" homecoming to the media, and so even before the Senate sergeants got to NAIA, General Atutubo and Octavio Lina, both deputies of its general manager Alfonso Cusi (and all extremely close to the powerful husband) were on hand with a police sergeant, or so Atutubo claims, to get Lozada.

In their haste, they were unable to arrange a Ninoy-style exit for Lozada through the emergency staircase. Or were they afraid of Ninoy and Galman's ghosts? Instead, they hustled him through the tube, past the arrival lobby, into the presidential lounge (how appropriate!), down the elevator, and into the tarmac where the "police" vehicles awaited their prey. That was at least a 300 meter walk, past stunned airport personnel, that only the NAIA authorities could implement. Atutubo allowed a police sergeant, one SPO4 Roger Valero-so, to enter a highly secured and forbidden area, without anything but his supposed police ID, while colonels sent by the Senate, armed with legal warrant, were kept at bay beyond the immigration area. (As we write this, radio was reporting that the PNP denied they have an SPO4 Roger Valeroso in their list of personnel.)

Nothing could be as brazen. Atutubo is clearly lying. After the kidnapping was done, 18 hours later, PNP chief Avelino Razon was claiming that Lozada was under PNP custody. On radio yesterday morning, Razon was having a hard time explaining why on earth his PNP got Lozada, despite knowledge that the Senate wanted him, or was that only because they learned Tuesday evening that Lozada's lawyers were about to go to the Supreme Court for habeas corpus and a writ of amparo?

Ganyan ka na rin ba kababa, kaibigang Sonny? Magsisinungaling ka na rin para sa mga halang ang kaluluwa?

The coven of evil struck again. As they did when Udong Mahusay was "rescued" in Tagaytay, and brought to the PNP Police Academy in Silang, escorted by Miguelito el Defensor, then the housing czar, later the Boss Woman's jefe del palacio. A few days later, before another Arroyo, the Joker this time, Udong gave the "lie" to his sworn statement about a certain Jose Pidal. And a certain Jose Ignacio Arroyo y Tuazon comes around to claim that he is "Jose Pidal". And the PNP Crime Laboratory, headed by a General Mosqueda, later to be promoted to the juicy jueteng region of Bicol, comes around to "scientifically" validate that Ignacio, now a congressman representing what used to be another Jun Lozada's district, was indeed Pidal by virtue of signature analysis that even a cross-eyed examiner would find fake and funny. General Mosqueda is incidentally a cousin of some high Malacañang official's "apple of the eye".

The coven of evil runs this country like a criminal syndicate. Through tons and tons of money, provided by jueteng lords and monopolists, by Pagcor and the PCSO, and Chinese carpet-baggers, and only God and devils know whereof else from.

Through firm control over military generals and police generals, down the line to wherever their tons of money and their power to appoint could sway whatever the coven bids.

Through a House of snakes and rats and crocodiles whose only fealty is to the pork that the "pig" dispenses according to whim and favor.

Through bishops and other religious "shepherds" who the indispensable Ephraim Genuino of Pagcor "takes care of" and whose personal and parish "concerns" the faithful Fatima Valdes of the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA) in Malacañang minds through the PCSO.

And through a people who meekly accept all the lying and all the cheating and all the stealing that work only to perpetuate the rule of this coven of evil.

God have mercy upon this benighted land.