Erap and Lacson Should Be Behind Bars!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Westland, Michigan, Sept. 20, 2009, – Inside St. Theodore Church Sunday, September 20, our priest in his homily quoted someone who said that he read only the sports page of a newspaper because it chronicles  man’s success and triumphs while the front page chronicles man’s dismal failure.  It is too bad that Filipino Voices  (FV), though not a newspaper in its traditional sense,  has only its front page.

Accordingly, our newspapers or FV,  regale us  with the darkest of human endeavor.   We read a variety of news and posts about GMA and her family’s plunder and failed governance, our fear about the possibility of a massive brownout on election day, Senator Villar’s ethics probe, the failure of the owners of Hacienda Luisita to give up their farms and lately, of Senator Ping Lacson’s and Joseph Estrada’s involvement in the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito. 

As regards to the Luisita farmlands, one can see the failed logic in the concept of breaking up a huge viable sugar land into small chunks so the farmers who have no capital can  own them  and operate them at a profit.   Society is basically a component of capital and labor.  China and Russia, despite their claims to being  socialist/communist societies, have not achieved a classless society so far, and yet we still dream of a great rendezvous with  an equitable society by simply giving the poor their lands to till. This is a myth that up to now is being fueled by the most incorrigible dreamers of our society. The politburo of China and Russia remain the face of the ruling class and majority of their citizens, their working class and with the doors of both countries greased by the corrupting influence of capitalism, you can see some cities, especially in China, become overnight models of “laissez faire” and the new entrepreneur class in these cities, on the rise.

Plunder of the treasury by a government functionary is a failure in integrity and honesty.  And despite endless media’s barrage on the corruption in the highest level of the government, the public no longer feel any sense of outrage, frustration or anger because we look at every allegation of wrongdoing motivated not by a noble purpose of bringing sanity back into government bureaucracy but that of ill-will for not being part of those who are looting the treasury.  We see a grand spectacle of J.  Devenecia, Jr. and his son denouncing the present administration as corrupt which reduces the entire debate in what  BongV’s metaphorically described in another post as a case of the “pot calling the kettle black”.

But the worst of our failure is our inability to be outraged by the most outrageous murder  of our fellow human beings.   Weeks after ex-police officer Cesar Mancao executed his affidavit implicating both Senator Lacson and former President Erap Estrada for the  murder of Dacer and Curbito, the government has not put these two suspects in handcuffs.  One said that it was the other who ordered the victims “neutralized” and the other countered that it was his accuser who was  involved in the murder.  Year 2000 was highlighted by impeachment of Erap. Dacer who was about to meet former President Fidel Ramos with some  alleged “dossiers” on Erap suddenly disappeared with his driver, Curbito and later found dead, torched and ditched in  Maragondon, Cavite.  Erap  has the motive to silence Dacer and he could have ordered his dirty PAOCF hitmen, headed by Lacsson to carry out the job.

The government should charge them both with murders including all those former police officers who carried out the order. But the government dawdled in putting these two high profile suspects behind bars.  Obviously, the government has the gullibility of Kay Adams  of Mario Puzo’s Godfather, that Presidents and Senators don’t have men killed.

Michael Corleone:  “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a President or Senator”.

Kay Adams:  “Do you know how naïve you sound,  Michael?  Presidents and Senators don’t have men killed”.

Michael Corleone:   Who’s being naïve, Kay?