‘The predictable result is the
adminis-tration’s shattered credibility.’
Another possible witness to the
Ar-royo administration’s thieving ways has left the country to evade a Senate
subpoena. Rodolfo Noel Lozada, described as having intimate knowledge of the
$375 million ZTE deal which would have cost taxpayers $150 million in overprice,
flew to Hong Kong and points east on an "official trip."
We don’t expect him to come back any time soon. He would
probably end up crisscrossing the globe without a permanent destination like
Agriculture Undersecretary Joc Joc Bolante before the latter ran afoul of US
immigration laws and ended up as a federal guest in a detention facility
somewhere in the Midwest.
The thieves and their defenders, meanwhile, are calling for
an end to the Senate investigation into the ZTE deal, saying the contract has
already been scuttled. There was no harm done. It’s time for the nation to move
on.
Like the country has been moving since Bolante flew the coop
to prevent the unmasking of the principals behind the P700 million farm inputs
fraud in 2004?
Since Joc Joc, the Arroyo administration has been lurching
from one scandal to another. None has seen closure because of Palace efforts to
thwart attempts to go to the bottom of the allegations. The predictable result
is the adminis-tration’s shattered credibility.
The mother of all thievery is the "Hello Garci" scandal. The
Joc Joc caper was meant to buy the 2004 elections. Gloria Arroyo, however,
apparently was not sure buying off local officials would ensure her election.
She had to cover all bases. So elections had to be rigged and results had to be
doctored.
With the nomination of retired Supreme Court Justice Jose
Melo to the post vacated by Benjamin Abalos, who incidentally was identified as
the principal in the frustrated ZTE fast-break, calls were renewed for a closure
to the "Hello Garci" controversy.
Establishing the truth about the wiretapped conversations
between Arroyo and former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano is seen as
critical to renewing people’s faith in the credibility and independence of the
Commission on Elections. There are elections scheduled in 2010. This exercise
has to be seen as honest and credible if the country is to succeed in regaining
some measure of authentic democracy following nine years in power of Arroyo’s
legitimacy-challenged administration.
And the Palace answer to calls for closure to "Hello Garci"?
The country has to move on.
To salvation or perdition, the Palace doesn’t say. But we can guess. And our
guess, along with that of the rest of the nation, can’t be far wrong.
