A case of the pot calling the kettle black!

There will be an anti-pork signature campaign at the Mariners' Court tomorrow and we fully agree that the pork barrel must be made extinct. In fact, the major news stories today stem from corruption in the use of the pork barrel. That was about the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigation last Wednesday chaired by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.

In the Senate hearing, they went into that full-blown investigation as proposed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV regarding the overprice of the Makati Office building and parking building, which they say wasn't overpriced; but rather the cost went up because the foundation was soft and thus they had to spend more to construct the building. But as Sen. Trillanes said, the construction company's records show that only P80 million was spent on the foundation of this building in question.

So now as Sen. Trillanes said during an interview yesterday over ANC, he will now ask the BIR to look into the construction company's tax records to see whether it paid the proper taxes on this construction. Of course the Binay family, notably Sen. Nancy Binay and Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay insist that the Senate investigation was done to malign their family name and that the whole thing was politically motivated.

This is the problem with today's crop of politicians. They try to trick the taxpayers by purchasing things at higher than the usual cost and when someone discovers and publicly exposes their nefarious activity they cry foul saying it is politically motivated. Who cares if all this is politically motivated? We the taxpayers only want to know one thing… what is the truth about these allegations? Corruption has become too widespread in this country, it has literally become a way of life and these politicians want the people to turn a blind eye to their corruption just because it is politically motivated?

Meanwhile also last Wednesday, a certain Atty. Roderick Vera, convenor and president of the Philippine Association for Advancement of Civil Liberties filed three separate criminal and administrative charges in the Office of the Ombudsman against Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Peter Alan Cayetano and his wife Taguig City Mayor Maria Laarni Cayetano and members of the city council for plunder and graft and corrupt practices for the alleged violation of Republic Act No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act) and RA 7080 (Act Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Plunder). I expected this to happen, which is why I wrote this article in The Philippine Star yesterday. Now it is Sen. Cayetano who must explain this.

Indeed, we all know how much a multi-cab is worth. This is why we question the purchase in Makati by then Mayor Jejomar Binay his purchase of mini-cabs or multi-cabs for P230,000 per unit. His defense is that the units they purchased were "high-end" units. So granted that his allegations were true, then we should ask whether a used Suzuki mini-cab that was chop-chopped in Japan and brought to the Philippines and reassembled, as a remanufactured vehicle, would be selling at P230,000 per unit? Don't ask me, but ask those people who bought multi-cabs from the various dealers here in Cebu and you will find out for yourself if these vehicles were overpriced?

In their defense, Sen. Cayetano said that the purchase of 18 brand-new mini ambulances and fire trucks that he funded with his Priority Development Assistance Program was never questioned by the Commission on Audit. But like what I said, it is impossible that we have a clean COA because the Philippines have become known as the corruption capital of Asia despite the existence of COA.

Now whether those mini-ambulances were brand new and really cost P450,000 per unit, the COA must double check their records and perhaps the BIR must also look into the receipts for the purchases of these vehicles to see whether they were properly recorded and taxes due were paid? So what is needed here is a full-blown no-nonsense investigation on these allegations of corruption. Of course Sen. Cayetano also revealed during the Senate investigation that Atty. Vera was a classmate of one of the Binay's siblings.

Atty. Vera also accused Sen. Cayetano of increasing his wealth to nearly 50 percent from P15,804,016.47 in 2010 to P23,210,161.00 in the year 2011 as seen in his Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. That's a P7.5 million increase in his income and is it wrong to ask how he made so much money in just one year when the majority of Filipinos could hardly even save enough money to keep in the bank?

What we all saw on nationwide TV about Sen. Cayetano questioning the corruption of the Binays is akin to the pot calling the kettle black! In fact because he now faces plunder charges, delicadeza dictates that Sen. Cayetano must relinquish his being chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee until he clears his name because we need to know the truth.