“The C5 extension project is, in reality, a project that benefits thousands of commuters and merchants and their vehicles that bring their goods daily and all week (24/7) from the North and Metro Manila.”
by Ducky Paredes
What is going on with the ethics case filed against then Senate President Manny Villar by that “dynamic duo” of Senator Ping and Senadora Jamby?
It’s been over a year now since the Senate started tackling allegations that Manny monkeyed with the budget of the Department of Pubic Works and Highways not only to benefit himself but also to enact two budgets for one and the same road project.
The allegations continue to be mere allegations; nothing has been proved. Senator Ping and Senadora Jamby presented what they claimed were evidence they had gathered to prove their allegations on the “C5 insertion issue.” Yet, to date, their allegations continue to remain mere allegations. The accused has hardly mounted a defense and has not even attended a single hearing. It has been a Ping and Jamby show from Day One.
If the accusers had anything at all, surely, the committee of the whole, which is hearing the case against Villar, would have found it in them to declare Manny Villar “guilty.” After all, the 24-member Senate is divided into various camps representing presidential candidates and their partisans. And, although Manny Villar would have his own Nacionalista partisans among them, the majority are committed elsewhere. Surely, if a guilty verdict had been possible, it would already have been rendered.
Villar, from his no-nonsense approach to the presidency, remains a potent threat to the presidential ambitions of other senators.
This inquiry has always been a “stretch” possibly even as much as a witch hunt even for the Senate, which goes overboard, whenever it has any issue with a huge potential to create political noise. It has been “milked to the max” as part of the larger effort to disgrace then Senate President Manny Villar and, thereby, ruin his chances in the presidential election next year.
The C5 extension project is, in reality, a project that benefits thousands of commuters and merchants and their vehicles that bring their goods daily and all week (24/7) from the North and Metro Manila.
Residents of towns on the southern corridor from Metro Manila as well as a good number of traders and manufacturers specially those located in the various PEZA registered zones in Cavite and Laguna wonder how long they will have to wait for politics to let go of their road so that the network can finally be completed for their benefit.
Because of the Senate’s inquiry, Malacanang – in order to distance itself from the controversy – has opted to impound the budget intended for the completion of the C5 extension.
The C5 extension project was envisioned (as far back as the Marcos presidency) as part of the seamless road connection scheme linking Metro Manila and its nearby provinces –the Greater Metro Manila corridor. The work has been done only at a piece-meal pace until recently. Now it is back to snail pace.
What have we got from the Senate inquiry on Manny Villar except more mud slinging and unproven accusations?
Even Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had to intervene by disallowing Senadora Jamby’s lawyer from presenting what he claimed as ‘other hot items’ on Villar, which were totally unrelated to the C5 issue.
(For the first time in a Senate inquiry, in silent unintended comment on the present quality of our Senate, a lawyer — not the accusing senator — was allowed to present alleged evidence before the hearing committee. This is not only unprecedented, it is a shame that our senadora is not competent enough to do the job.)
There must be limits to everything.
One year is too long a wait to finish an inquiry on the conduct of a sitting senator. If there is incontrovertible evidence, as has been claimed from Day One, there should already have been a committee resolution that would have at the very least censured Villar. But, for the whole Senate to devote one whole year searching for proof of Villar’s perfidy? Too long a time and too much of it devoted to a minor issue.
This project is a necessary road network, and it is not fair to those who need it to wait and see it mired in political mud, which is being thrown at Villar for no good reason but that he is a leading presidential contender.
In the last hearing, Villar’s former consultant was told to bring his 2008 Income Tax Return (ITR) or face a jail sentence. If this is the way that the Senate gets to the bottom of things they investigate, no wonder that there are so many unsolved mysteries in that chamber.
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In the face of several more typhoons in our future, why not just disband the Pagasa (Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration) and farm out weather forecasting to CNN, NASA and the rest of the world. All that Pagasa seems to do is give an internationally known typhoon – Ketsana– a local name – Ondoy –from a predetermined listing.
In this day and age, with open communications within the civilized world, there is really no need to spend millions (maybe billions) for an agency whose main function seems to be that of renaming international weather disturbances when they enter the “Philippine Area of Responsibility.”
Apparently, those working in Pagasa have no sense of responsibility over what happens to the rest of us when they do not give us proper warning for weather that can kill us.
We do not need a weather bureau. In the real sense, this country does not have one. An agency that watches the weather for a country must warn the rest of us when the weather is expected to turn foul.
If Pagasa is too incompetent to do the job, let’s find other people to do the weather or total that agency and maybe even its mother unit – the Department of Science and Technology(DOST). What good are they if they cannot do for us what we can access over the Internet from CNN, BBC and other sources.
How many billions do we spend for these agencies? Those funds may be better applied to those who are victimized by the weather that Pagasa is supposed to be watching for us.
Can a country so backward that it cannot even properly forecast the weather handle a totally automated election?
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hvp 09.30.09
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