Still a month more to absolve yellows

“One can’t stop the count at this time, since Carpio-Morales has at least a month to keep on protecting the yellows.”

There Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales went again, with her penchant for clearing and absolving Liberal Party biggies while indicting with a lesser crime those LPs who are not quite seen as yellow biggies.

The other day, Morales, the certified yellow protector, ordered the filing of a graft case—take note, not plunder raps—against former Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and 16 others in connection with the P4.25-billion contract awarded to Busan Universal Rail Inc. (BURI) for the upgrade and maintenance of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3).

Carpio-Morales said her special panel of investigators found probable cause to charge Abaya and 16 other respondents with violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

But even as Abaya and 16 other respondents were indicted and only for graft, which means bail is automatically granted, the infamous yellow protector again exercised her brand of selective justice, as Carpio-Morales, in the same resolution, junked the plunder complaint against Abaya and his predecessor Mar Roxas “for lack of probable cause.”

That is always expected of this infamous protector of the yellow president and his close aides. No matter the heavy weight of the evidence, they are always, always absolved by Morales, who, until the day she retires, makes certain the yellow biggies are cleared of all charges.

Yet when it comes to charging — and for plunder, which means detention and no bail — the political foes of the yellow president, why it gets done. No matter the fact that no probable cause really exists for plunder, as the Ombudsman and her prosecutors have to manufacture evidence and get a coached “state witness” who has been keeping the money for himself just for Carpio-Morales to charge before the courts the three then-opposition senators with plunder.

But Mar Roxas and ex-Budget Chief Abad got the special treatment again from Carpio-Morales by absolving them of the crime of plunder and even graft.

Just how many charges were dismissed where Abad and Carpio-Morales’ yellow patron, Noynoy Aquino, were named by complainants?

One can’t stop the count at this time, since Carpio-Morales has at least a month to keep on protecting the yellows. And one can bet his bottom peso that the outgoing Ombudsman will use that time to check on all the charges filed against the yellow biggies which will all be dismissed by her, that is for certain.

More yellow aides of the yellow president’s plunder charges were dismissed by the outgoing Ombudsman. These were plunder charges filed against seven more former Cabinet officials during the former yellow administration.

Former Budget Chief Abad was again cleared by the Ombudsman, along with former Finance Chief Cesar Purisima, Energy Chief Jericho Petilla, Aquino’s Defense Chief Voltaire Gazmin, DPWH Chief Rogelio Singson, among others.

These Cabinet secretaries, all members of the Government Procurement Policy Board under the Aquino administration, faced plunder raps filed by today’s Department of Transportation that would have the evidence with which to file plunder charges against the yellow Cabinet secretaries.

Yet Carpio-Morales, in dismissing the plunder charges against these yellows whom she protects till her last day as Ombudsman, claimed the complainants “adduced no evidence showing that either Roxas or Abaya, or any of their co-respondents” had amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 million, the threshold amount of public funds for a crime to be considered as plunder.

Ombudsman Morales claimed there was no evidence to prove that at least P50 million of the funds for the MRT-3 upgrade and maintenance was diverted to the possession of Roxas or Abaya, or to any of their co-respondents.

Really? So where and to whom did all that plundered money go? Or is Carpio Morales saying no money was plundered at all?

The Ombudsman, in the case against Abaya, was quoted as saying the probe revealed that he had conspired with other then officials of MRT-3 and of the Transport Department in giving unwarranted benefit, advantage or preference to BURI by awarding to it the contract totaling P4,251,900,000 despite the firm’s “lack of eligibility and qualifications” to carry out the long-term project.

Did the Ombudsman and her field investigators ever wonder why Abaya and all others who were complained against for plunder, awarded BURI a contract worth billions of pesos without even getting freaking tens of millions of pesos in return at the very least?

Is Carpio-Morales saying those who faced plunder charges but were absolved by her are saints?

But the protected yellows shouldn’t rejoice. A new Ombudsman may just reverse such moves from Carpio-Morales.