Will the buck stop with Martin? (2)
To my mind, the greatest danger here is not that justice has been delayed — it is that we might mistake this single arrest for justice itself.
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To my mind, the greatest danger here is not that justice has been delayed — it is that we might mistake this single arrest for justice itself.
Last Monday, an arrest warrant for plunder was served on former House Speaker Martin Romualdez while he was confined at Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City.
While his arrest is a significant development, accountability, however, cannot be demanded a la carte — from one while holding back from others. The flood control scandal is not just about one or two men; it is about a system that allowed billions in public funds to be siphoned off while communities drowned.
The public must hold the Ombudsman to his declaration to continue its probe without fear or favor. And we must demand that the question not merely be “who have been arrested?” but “who else was on the take?” Surely, with the amount of money allegedly pilfered from the government coffers, this didn’t go to just one, two, or three pockets. What of the others?
Romualdez himself has insisted that “the budget does not begin in the House. It begins in the executive.” He explicitly tagged then-Senate President Chiz Escudero and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Zaldy Co as “instrumental” in making budget decisions.
If Romualdez is guilty of influencing the budget, were Escudero and the others merely passive observers? If we are to believe the testimonies, even those later recanted, linking multiple personalities to the kickback scheme, why is it that only Romualdez and Co have so far been charged?
To my mind, the greatest danger here is not that justice has been delayed — it is that we might mistake this single arrest for justice itself. We celebrate the fall of one politician while ignoring all the others who, by all accounts, were alleged to have orchestrated the scheme and facilitated its execution. We applaud the President for not protecting his cousin, yet why has the net not been cast wider?
The public must demand that the Ombudsman and the Palace explain why no one in the Marcos Jr. Cabinet has been charged. Even Bonoan has been discharged and made a state witness.
Why have the Cabinet secretaries, their undersecretaries and deputies who have been implicated been shielded from any accountability and liability for their roles in the very same kickback scheme involving Romualdez? The disbursements could not have been made without their complicity.
And why have the testimonies mentioning them been so quietly swept under the rug and hushed up as if to distract from any further probes into the matter? So much so that the appointment of a high-ranking Cabinet member, who was implicated as a central figure in the budget controversy, to a juicy post in a seemingly obscure government financial institution has slipped public scrutiny.
Undeniably, Martin Romualdez makes for a convenient scapegoat. An offering to appease the public without rendering real justice and exacting accountability from the entire government machinery that has utterly failed and neglected the plight and suffering of the Filipino people.
Make no mistake, the flood control scandal will not be put to rest by Romualdez’s arrest. It will only be put to rest when every single lawmaker, official and contractor who profited from this plunder of public funds faces the full force of the law.
Until then, real justice has not been served. We have only a farce — another zarzuela — presented by the Marcos Jr. administration to give the public a false sense of satisfaction that accountability has been exacted and justice served on a silver platter.
