Some good in spite of…

After a week of incessant rains I was wondering if any good would come out of the storms, habagat and tropical depressions that seemed to park themselves in the Philippine area of responsibility.

Most of the news in traditional and online platforms focused on flooding, flooded roads, flooded municipalities and provinces but hardly anything on the relief efforts, acts of courage, charity or kindness. The only eye-catching story was about two men in Kawit, Cavite rescuing children.

The only “good” I could think of that may come out of the rains, particularly the widespread flooding all over northern and southern Luzon, was it would serve as a cold and brutal reminder, if not a wake-up call, that NO ONE, no CongTractor or elected official has been charged or landed in jail for the ghost flood control projects.

While suspects and “accused” continue to boldly go where others would be ashamed to be seen, it just occurred to me that all the magnifying glasses and guns are focused mostly on former House speaker Martin Romualdez. I’m fine with that but…

Why is no one investigating, interrogating or gathering information about the involvement and actions of members of “the small committee,” party-list groups or other congressional committee members who had a hand in the controversial budget insertions and manipulations?

Who is protecting whom and over what? Or maybe I should ask: is anybody at the DOJ actually investigating the paper trail or lack of it in Congress? Because if no agency of the PBBM administration is investigating the matter, what are we hoping for, in terms of justice being served?

The monsoon rains also reminded me to write about the fact that the ghost flood control projects is not just multiple conspiracies to commit crime and thereby plunder but may constitute or qualify as multiple homicide, manslaughter or murder, if only real lawyers put their minds to it.

Several if not many individuals, young and old, died due to the floods and the absence of flood control projects that were already paid for. I hope that the Department of Defense or the DOH or DSWD has some sort of files listing who and where people died due to flooding or drowning where the projects never came to be.

If such cases or charges prospered, there will be no issues about bail, life sentences or politically designed pardons or commutation of sentences. Such deaths is not simply due to reckless imprudence, the causes were premeditated and scaled.

On the dark side of things, I’m honestly concerned if the suspects and the accused will ever experience the humiliation of standing in court while the charges against them are read before family and the media.

Given how key witnesses have “died,” recanted, bought or disappeared, how sure is the Marcos administration that justice will be served? The fact that suspected and accused legislators have stayed out of the crosshairs of any serious and direct interrogation makes it all suspicious.

Meanwhile Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla have been turned into scapegoats and members of the lower house have kicked out or ostracized ex-congressmen Barzaga and Leviste. That is not justice; it is deflection and reverse persecution.

While I do not want to give life to the possibility that justice won’t be served, I cannot also deny that Romualdez et. al. have a history of dealing with similar charges in the past, as well as many hours and days spent sitting and standing before investigators or judges and eventually being declared “not guilty.”

For all the declarations of PBBM and Ombudsman Remulla, we all know that justice is a long game that we often lose in the Philippines because our political system and merry-go-round replacement of government officials often cause procedural amnesia.

In terms of injury, it is said that “time heals all things” or “time often decides things if you wait long enough.” When I looked for something closer to criminal cases, one phrase hit hard: “time favors the accused.”

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Going back to the search for some good in spite of during this period of really pouring rains and floods, a member of our men’s discipleship group shared that everywhere they drove, it was either get stuck in traffic or forge through floods.

Even the motels and low-cost hotels were fully occupied, and motorists were lucky if they actually made it to an SM mall parking garage. What was interesting was his account of how the LRT mass transit system and presumably the MRT provided the only flood-proof transport for stranded commuters.

We take such things for granted but any administration and Congress should do everything they can to activate and legislate non-negotiable, untouchable, politics-proof and future-proof mass transit projects.

In the same manner, government and Congress should do likewise for the construction of new dams and water retaining facilities. We may have a lot of water now, but most countries are in agreement that water, not diesel, will be a serious concern.

During the weeklong deluge, someone also replayed the documentary on why BGC does not experience flooding. That of course is attributed to the gigantic cistern or rainwater impounding tank underneath BGC.

Indeed, rains and floods work wonders on what we take for granted!

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