New Bilibid anomalies

Just a few months after he took office, Gen. Gaudencio Pangilinan has been charged again with a series of alleged anomalies involving corruption, prostitution and other irregularities. These include favored prisoners allowed to continue with excursions out of prison and conducting their businesses in their offices outside the prison walls.

The allegations from Kabungsan Makilala, a former assistant of the Bureau bid and awards committee, had not yet been validated. But Justice Secretary Leila de Lima pledged to look into these.

Among the favored inmates was Rolito Go, convicted for road rage when I was still a Manila editor.

In short, that only makes me wonder whether there is big money involved that these anomalies that can resurface after the bureau of prisons revamp by President Benigno Aquino III. That removal of former prisons director Ernesto Diokno was supposed to have been to promote drastic changes in the New Bilibid Prison. But apparently, that was more of a show than actual compliance by prisons officials for reforms.

C’est la vie.

***

There was something that caught my attention yesterday on TV. This was the claim by Rep. R. Umali and another solon that if the purloined dollar deposit document is found to be accurate, then the ones who testified that they were “fake” should be punished.

Funny, none of them ever discussed the whole issue – that the disclosure of the document was prohibited by law and that the one who placed it in the hands of Umali and others and later has these submitted to the Senate Impeachment tribunal should be the one who should have been punished according to the law.

So that’s how lawyers can twist the facts to suit their convenience. In short, it a crime to adduce that the document was fake but all right for the court to accept the act and the disclosure of the document as right simply because it upheld the correctness of allegations against chief Justice Renato Corona.

***

Thus, at times, I feel the best thing one can do is close our ears and eyes to the ongoing impeachment telenovela. It sometimes can be exciting, but the fact is it can be boring with both sides using their knowledge of the law to justify positions one way or the other.

That’s why I have paid attention to the ongoing drama of the fight over the remains of former Ignacio Arroyo, the congressman of the 5th District of Negros Occidental.

A strange twist. It seems, now that Iggy’s eldest daughter by his first wife, Bianca, has actually allied herself with Grace Ibuna. The latter was Iggy’s companion for several years while the annulment case of his marriage with Alicia remains unacted upon by the court.

Thus, from her point of view, Aleli remains the legal wife of Iggy and has the right claim to his remains.

The other problem was the issue over the wealth of Iggy, reputed at one time to be over P2.3 billion.

Unfortunately, according to Grace, Iggy had written a will which virtually ceded to her his assets and properties.

So, there you are. Of course, we have no interest in the money or property of Iggy. Only that his remains are brought back to the Philippines where his family and loved ones can also give him the honor that is due him. So with the members of the House of Representatives.

But that remains a long wait for all of us.

***

For the moment, I should like to comment on the gift from Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala of a multi-million pesos liquid nitrogen and semen processing plant.

This is something that the Negros agriculture sector had long been wishing for since in the past the difficulties encountered by cattle breeding and carabao upgrading were spoiled to a certain extent by mishandled semen of livestock, which had to be transported to and from Manila and Nueva Ecija.

The advent of the equipment is certainly going to boost the chance of Negros to genetically improve livestock and put it back to where it used to be once upon a time as the biggest livestock producer of the country.

***

I had deplored in the past that the problem of agrarian reform was that only land was re-distributed to the new landowners who were left afterwards to their devices.

Thus, over the years, land reform became the pitfall of agricultural productivity.

Especially in the case of the sugar industry. What can one do when, even if given 10 or 50 hectares of land, the new owner does not get equipped with the necessary capital nor given the technological know how on how to cultivate sugar lands.

Thus, while the administration has reportedly set aside P7.9 billion for acquiring of land the problem is that only P2-billion has been appropriated for support services. That lack of funds for support services was precisely the reason why CARPER pulled down agricultural productivity, especially for sugar.

That CARPER was purposely passed by Congress to make up for that oversight. But government is still in that state of mind where land acquisition remains the primary priority instead of updating what support services had been failed to be given to the agrarian reform beneficiaries.

***

The Kabankalan police was reported to have tagged the two suspects who held up a bodyguard of a sugar trader and taken away P2-million in cash from the secretary of the trader.

The police remained tightlipped as to the identities of the suspects. But one can easily deduce that they must be familiar to the trader and must have been studying the way money was taken from the bank for them to have staged the heist so easily.

The problem was that they did not just run away with their loot they also had to kill the bodyguard.

Move fast, gentlemen. A crime of such magnitude must be solved fast or else a lot more of the same would be staged soon if the case is not speadily solved.*

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