Too big to jail

Not many Filipinos are familiar with the Bells of Balangiga that President Duterte asked the US government to return to the Philippines during the latest SONA. There were three of them taken by the 9th US Infantry as war booty. Based on an article written by Arnaldo Dumindin two US soldiers had too much Tuba, sexually harassed a Filipina girl that resulted with her big brothers beating up the drunken soldiers. That led to the rounding up, detention of men and putting them to forced labor that humiliated town elders and leaders.

Soon a plot was hatched to redeem Filipino honor by killing the American soldiers. It was the worst attack ever suffered by the US military where 48 out of a 74-man company were hacked to death, and it is told that one of the bells was used to signal the attack on the Americans. The Americans ultimately retaliated and killed the resistance, burned everything including the church and took the three bells with them.

President Duterte may not realize it but the US Ambassador to the Philippines is of Korean-American descent and the bell suspected of being used in the attack against the American soldiers is supposedly hanging inside the base of the 9th US Infantry in Camp Hovey located in Tungduchon, SOUTH KOREA! The other two bells are hanging in the trophy area of the F.E Warren Air Force Base in Cheyene, Wyoming.

I have written about the Bells of Balangiga before and I learned that there was never much interest or concentrated effort to recover the bells because it would require an act of the US Congress or something complicated in order for officials of the US Armed Forces to act on President Duterte’s request or demand as the case maybe. Given how some US lawmakers hate Duterte’s guts, the chances of getting the bells back might have to be sponsored or undertaken by the President of the United States as an act of goodwill. Given the nasty details of the “Bayonet Rule” imposed on the people of Samar, it may be to the interest of the US to return the bells and do some Tuba diplomacy instead.

* * *

They have a phrase in the United States that aptly describes mega corporations that are so big everything they do affects almost everybody, so much so that even the United States government has to insure the continued operations and stability of such corporations. They are described as companies that have become “Too Big To Fail” because if they fail it would affect the US economy, global business and more. For a while that phrase applied to the US auto industry and its major players. Then it applied to US banks and certain companies in the financial services. For a time even US agriculture had the looks and feel of a company “too big to fail.” While certain groups did not like the idea of taxpayers having to shore up such companies in the hard times, the fact of the matter was too many jobs and lots of money was at stake and helping them was like helping everyone else.

In the Philippines, there a very few companies that qualify as “too big to fail” and our government and regulatory system is not sophisticated enough to value and insure that companies don’t collapse which would result in lost jobs as well as public investments. So many banks have closed down, so many scammers have run off with government as well as private funds, even bank depositors find themselves scammed internally by bank employees and I know people who have had to go to court for relief. The only hope you have is to get a minimum portion of your deposits or investments from the PDIC. Regulators and the media keep a close watch on the mega corporations but just like the Asian financial crisis, once the shit hits the fan, everybody is on their own.

What we do have in the Philippines is the phrase “Too Big To Jail.” Just as I predicted a week or so ago, no less than the President of the Philippines has announced that the government will accept a “compromise settlement” of P25 billion or thereabouts from the Mighty Tobacco Corporation that has been accused of counterfeiting cigarette tax stamps as well as tax evasion to the tune of some P38 billion. The compromise offer is just Too Big not to accept. Cash in hand is better than crooks in jail. This of course is not the first time some Chinese businessman with too much money has offered to pay for a “Stay Out of Jail” card from the Duterte Administration.

Remember the guy who was operating an online gaming company in Clark? Jack Lam offered to pay P3 billion but I think the offer was rejected because the offer would come in the form of several installment payments. The guy is obviously Too Small to bail so the idea was to send him to jail which resulted in Lam flying out of the country. If P3 billion is too small for “bail,” what about Janet Lim-Napoles? In her case, she “Knows Too Much To Send Alone.” The estimated amount scammed from government is P10 billion, or 1 billion annually. How much of that money is left, could be retrieved, or could be offered as compromise?

NONE! The present government is not interested in the money that is probably all gone anyway. What the Duterte group wants is legal basis to file criminal charges against a bunch of self-righteous politicians who turn out to have profited by stealing Development funds as well as collecting from illegal gambling. Maybe it won’t be a case of “Too Big To Jail.” Instead it might be “Truth or Consequence.” Either get the truth out of Janet Lim-Napoles and make it public or stand accused of a cover-up for the sake of political correctness. That would discredit any anti-corruption campaign of this administration.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]