Our good friend lawyer Larry Gadon, who belonged to a very small circle of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo supporters who gave her moral, media, and legal support throughout her years of detention, is charging yet again into another political fray. This time he’s threatening to file an impeachment case against Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno.
Larry famously made it into the top 24 senatorial circle last year on a shoestring budget of a couple hundred thousand pesos. A gourmet cook, part-time lounge singer, and regular guest on kapihans and radio-TV, he currently presides over PDu30 CoRe, the oldest of the federalism advocacy groups that have mushroomed under the president from Mindanao.
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In his latest outturn, Larry says he will charge the CJ with failure to disclose all her assets in her annual SALN as required from all public servants. He refers to what he says were her multi-million peso fees earned when she privately lawyered for the Philippine government in the Piatco case contested years ago before an international court.
Ordinarily, such non-disclosure would simply be an administrative offense easily resolved by correcting and refiling one’s SALN. But it was the same charge that was used to impeach, try, and convict Sereno’s hapless predecessor, the late CJ Renato Corona—an epic public lynching that was liberally greased, we now know, by hundreds of millions of pesos in misappropriated DAP moneys paid as bribes to congressmen and senators.
There are other alleged irregularities he plans to bring up against Sereno:
Purchase of a luxury SUV worth over P5 million, plus another P3 million for bullet-proofing, with Supreme Court funds at a time when Duterte has called for austerity;
Delays in approving and releasing survivorship benefits to as many as 200 relatives of justices and judges who’ve passed away;
Other instances of delay—such as in the change of venue for the Maute trial from Marawi to Manila—for which Larry says he’s still gathering his evidence.
If Corona had to go down for an erroneous SALN, so too should his successor. “Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander,” Larry exclaims. And if Sereno survives this challenge, it can only be credited to the sole difference between the situations of both chief justices:
Corona’s targeting by a vindictive, bribe-paying, law-breaking, Asperger’d BS who couldn’t resist parlaying his misplaced filial affections into an executive-legislative conspiracy to misuse the justice system for the destruction of a decent man.
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And now for an update from the administration of a president who is as transparent with the BSs that regularly fly out of his mouth, as he is about the Filipino heart that he unabashedly always wears on his sleeve:
Early last Sunday, Ozamiz City mayor “Aldong” Parojinog and his wife were killed in a gunfight with PNP-CIDG troopers who raided their house armed with search warrants issued against alleged drug personalities in Misamis Occidental. Firearms and drug paraphernalia were found in the mayor’s house and those of his relatives who were also raided.
The Parojinogs had gained notoriety as a powerful dynasty in Mindanao, even before their names were included in a long list of drug-linked politicians that Duterte brandished before TV cameras in the early months of his administration. It’s safe to say that any tears shed for them by most people will be, at best, reptilian.
Aldong in death claimed the dubious honor of becoming the third mayor to meet his maker because of drugs. Last November 5, Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte was killed inside his jail cell by policemen led by a Supt. Marvin Marcos, who has since been reassigned to head the PNP CIDG in Central Mindanao, where it’s possible that Aldong was also attended by his Marcosian ministrations.
And a week before that, on October 28, “first to fall” honors were claimed by Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of the town of Datu Saudi Ampatuan in Maguindanao, who was killed with nine of his bodyguards while traveling in a convoy in North Cotabato.
There are many more high and mighty names in that druggie list held by Duterte. If you consider the revolving door through which dynastic politicians regularly transit—today a mayor, tomorrow a congressman, back to mayor the day after, sometimes even a senator if they do really well—you can imagine how high up the drug influence can reach.
Those cash bundles totaling P78 million that the soldiers stumbled across in Marawi give you a good idea of what we’re up against. And that kind of cash falling into ISIS hands gives you an even better idea of how much worse it could still get.
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If you ask any of the 85 percent of Filipinos who supported Duterte in the latest surveys what they think should be done with those blue-chip names in his druggie list, it’s safe to say that the consensus reply might make the do-gooders in the US Congress and EU Parliament throw up their hands in horror.
“Kailangan ding sampulan ang mga talagang drug lord.” Enough with the small fry, now let’s go after the big fish. It’s rough justice, to be sure—but justice all the same.
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