VIP jailbirds

Since the pork barrel scandal erupted, the question I have heard most often is whether any of the lawmakers implicated in the scam would end up behind bars.

Shortly before the Office of the Ombudsman announced it would file charges in court against three senators, their staff, Janet Lim Napoles and several others, I heard this question again. This was after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a California senator on charges of corruption and attempt to smuggle guns from the Philippines to the United States.

Sen. Leland Yee is a Democrat, a party mate of US President Barack Obama. Yee is accused of entanglement with a Chinese-American triad in the planned arms deal to raise campaign funds. A day after his arrest, Yee withdrew from the race for California secretary of state. 

In our country, if a senator is arrested for corruption, he’ll likely run for president. Will he be arrested?

Certainly, senators are arrested in this country. It will be Take 2 for one of the three senators accused in the pork barrel scam, Jinggoy Estrada. In 2001, he was placed under “hospital arrest” without bail for plunder together with dad Joseph Estrada.

Erap’s successor at Malacañang, currently a re-elected congresswoman, is herself under hospital arrest for plunder.

So there’s a good chance that Senators Jinggoy, Juan Ponce Enrile and Bong Revilla will be arrested and held without bail.

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We should consider reserving hospital arrest only for former presidents and prepare other detention facilities for lower ranking public officials.

The report prepared by the Commission on Audit (COA) on the Priority Development Assistance Fund implicated nearly 200 lawmakers including three more senators in the misuse of the PDAF or congressional pork barrel.

Since bail is generally not allowed for plunder, all of those lawmakers are likely to end up in jail. They can’t all be detained in government hospitals; those health care facilities are badly needed by (honest) civil servants including military veterans and other retirees.

The possible mass arrest of incumbent and former lawmakers may finally lead to an upgrade in certain local jails. Modern penology is supposed to focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment. But one look at our jails, where defendants are held while their cases are being tried and guilt has not yet been established, will tell you that the situation is the opposite here. Those jails are crowded, poorly ventilated, filthy and vermin-infested, and inmates must buy their own food if they want decent nutrition.

Crime gangs reign in many jails, and we’ve all read reports of inmate beatings and women being raped. We have no special facilities for white-collar crime suspects and juvenile inmates.

Awareness of the sorry state of these jails is the reason for requests for special treatment among VIP defendants.

Taxpayers enraged by the pork barrel scam are asking why impoverished petty thieves must suffer in crowded, cockroach-infested jails while on trial, while those who steal millions and even billions from public coffers are allowed to maintain their privileged lifestyles, detained in air-conditioned facilities, with their own bedrooms, receiving rooms and medical teams on standby.

It’s a form of “wang-wang” that daang matuwid has not abolished.

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The question about the possibility of putting senators behind bars refers not only to detention while the plunder cases are being tried, but imprisonment if anyone is convicted.

And the question is raised because while a former Philippine president was convicted of plunder, he was pardoned and freed before he could even catch sight of the roofs of the National Penitentiary. And now he’s mayor of Manila, happily joking about being an ex-convict. The joke is on us.

The government has recovered billions stashed away in Swiss banks during the Marcos dictatorship after it was established that the funds were ill-gotten, but no one has been sent to prison for illegally amassing the wealth. Who stole the funds and put them in Swiss banks? It couldn’t have been just Ferdinand Marcos, all by his lonesome. Where did the money come from?

Taxpayers are currently forking out millions for the salaries and perks of Marcos’ widow as an honorable member of the House of Representatives, their only son as a senator, and eldest daughter as provincial governor.

At least prosecutors are now going after crooked officials of the Bureau of Customs and Bureau of Internal Revenue who have failed lifestyle checks. But these are still small fry compared with lawmakers and other public officials accused of plunder. These are small fry compared with the industrialists who cook their books to evade massive tax payments.

Yesterday a court froze the assets of Napoles, accused mastermind of the pork barrel scam, and those of her family as well as several of her co-defendants.

We’re waiting for a similar order covering the assets of the accused senators.

People are also waiting for the indictment and arrest of administration allies, plus a Supreme Court ruling against the Disbursement Acceleration Program designed by ruling Liberal Party stalwarts.

The administration that trumpeted the end of wang-wang or VIP entitlements must apply it to the latest developments in the pork barrel scam.

Perceptions must be dispelled that from arrest to detention and punishment, there are two sets of laws in this country: one for the poor, and the other for the rich and powerful.