FROM THE BARREL OF MY PEN
By Gonzalo “Jun” Policarpio


GO, GET THEM!


The Aquino presidency in the Philippines suffered another humiliating legal knock-out, third in a row, when the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court, ruled as “unconstitutional” the creation of the Truth Commission designed to investigate charges of corruption and other violations of law against the previous administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Now, what do you think about it?

We can say right away that the appointed legal handlers of President Aquino need to sharpen more their legal minds. There is no need to resort to indignant public protests and demonstrations against the Supreme Court. PNOY must tap the best prosecutorial legal minds available at his disposal and field them to finally haul known corrupt government officials already charged with corruption and other violations of law and dump them to a place where they belong.

What is the sense of publicizing again the gathering of information or evidence to proceed with the prosecution of a corrupt government official? If the Department of Justice and other law-enforcement agencies as well as the Congressional investigating committees have already gathered the required solid evidence to convict a corrupt government official, why do it again with a Truth Commission?

The right words to tell President Aquino NOW is do it and enforce the law. Avoid this childish legal encounters with the Supreme Court whose members were all appointed by his main target of prosecution. I believe the evidence is already in the bag ready to convict a group of criminals where some of them may be members of the Supreme Court.

Remember that the government officials under the previous Arroyo administration including Arroyo’s husband and sons accused of corruption already did challenge anybody with guts to file criminal complaints in a court of law if they have the evidence. So what is impeding the current Aquino prosecutorial team to accept the challenge?

It is hard to believe that in a democratic and just country like the Philippines, only one agency is authorized to prosecute top government officials charged with corruption and other violations of law. I am referring to the OMBUDSMAN who has refused to prosecute former Arroyo officials found to have committed graft and corruption by Congress and other law enforcement agencies.

To PNOY and legal advisers, there must be a way to “kick the rascals” out of government circulation.