AMID the publicity stunt that Vice President Sara Duterte and her counsel have embarked on lies the uncompromising truth that she has been exposed.
Many times, Duterte would cry discriminatory treatment, alleging that accusations against her — misuse of hundreds of millions in confidential funds, threats unworthy of a high official or undeclared wealth that suggests murky financial sources — pale in comparison to the trillions lost in alleged flood control plunder. Even her counsel has been crying that the impeachment trial is nothing but political persecution.
But let’s treat those cases separately and focus at this point on the vice president’s handling of her office, her demeanor, her intellectual capacity, her readiness to be transparent and willingness to be held accountable.
She had been slapped with several impeachment articles that included threatening the president, first lady and the then-speaker of the House, Martin Romualdez, in a now viral online rant which her detractors said showed her true color — a person inclined to violence, unabashed use of cuss words including “p****g ina,” and ready to smash anything breakable to let out her rage. This behavior would have gone unnoticed if she had just been a private individual seeking her five minutes of fame through social media. But no, she was not just any aggrieved lass ranting at her enemies online. In succession, she is first in line.
She has also been charged with misuse of hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential funds that she received both as vice president and then-Education secretary, and which prosecution presentations showed were used in the most questionable of ways. Documents showing how taxpayer money was misspent are aplenty.
The article of impeachment that prosecutors decided to retain after dropping the others involved Duterte’s wealth, those that she failed to declare in her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, or SALN, which is required of public officials, elected or appointed, to measure their trustworthiness, their fitness to hold public office, their honesty and whether they enriched themselves using their positions. Failure to list real estate property, funds or financial assets in the SALN simply meant one thing — the wealth is unexplained.
The last one might be the most serious. It is trailed by precedence in the cases of two Supreme Court justices who were ousted from their powerful seats for SALN offenses that, going by the vice president’s own logic, pale in comparison with the SALN omission that Duterte currently is charged with and is likely to be at a loss how to explain.
The first Supreme Court justice to mete out the penalty of removal from office as a result of SALN infraction was Renato Corona. During his impeachment trial, also by the Senate sitting as an impeachment court, it was found that thousands in dollar-denominated accounts had been undeclared in his SALN.
The second justice to be removed from office on the basis of SALN misdemeanor was Maria Lourdes Sereno, a legal luminary many looked up to. Her offense? Failing to declare in her SALN her paltry income, not even in the millions, in a previous work at the University of the Philippines. Her case was decided by her peers, but nonetheless taught everyone that evidence is tough to discredit when it presents itself in black and white. Many believed her when she declared that it was an honest mistake. Her credibility had not been tarnished. But the evidence refused to be buried in high esteem. It didn’t matter how well-respected Sereno was. She violated the law and was meted out punishment.
Fast-forward to the present.
Spouses Sara Duterte and Mans Carpio, both required by law to be covered by SALN records, had declared zero cash in banks. The SALN lie, whether deliberate or inadvertent, was quickly exposed by irrefutable evidence — records at the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), records in banks and other transaction records.
One by one, the evidence rose to the surface like fins rising to the top of ocean waves and warning of the presence of sharks. Soon enough, the company named GenCorp came into focus. In her SALN, Duterte had made brief mention of the firm. No details. But as testimony by her brother, Sebastian, unearthed, GenCorp had lucrative contracts with the Davao City local government which by themselves smack of conflict of interest, which many officials are guilty of violating but not by the successor to the president.
The evidence continued to gush out of the sewer of corruption. Forensic analyst testimony estimated the unexplained funds to be worth more than P800 million. AMLC records showed hundreds of millions in remittances made suspicious by their source, an entity with links to the Chinese source. And the amounts revealed dwarfs the amount Corona did not declare in his SALN for which he was convicted.
People yearning for decency in governance did one of the simplest math equations, addition, and came up with no other logical result than one plus one equals two.
Going back to the cases of the two Supreme Court justices punished for comparatively smaller SALN infractions, Duterte cannot claim persecution or laws weaponized specifically for her alone.
As the saying goes, what is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander, too. In other words, justice applies to all whether it is the two justices who committed the mistake of overlooking the importance of SALN or the second-highest official of the land who apparently cannot wrap her head around the concept of accountability.
In exacting accountability in the case of Sara Duterte, it is interesting to cite the many cases aside from that of the two ousted justices. One notable example of how justice must work, though imperfect, was the case of infamous American gangster Al Capone. The end of his criminal empire came not in the form of a hail of bullets unleashed in revenge for the hundreds of lives he snuffed out in his heyday. It came in the form of documents, evidence, irrefutable numbers and facts that found he deliberately failed to pay taxes.
In Sara Duterte’s case, precedence is overwhelming.
By the way, in the Corona impeachment, 20 senators voted for him. And nine of them are still sitting in the Senate today, including Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Panfilo Lacson, Lito Lapid, Loren Legarda, Francis Pangilinan, Vicente Sotto III, and even detained and suspended Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.
If they voted to convict Corona on the basis of his non-declaration of certain assets in his SALN, I can’t see any reason why they won’t vote to convict Duterte this time given the similarity of the situation. Especially the Cayetano siblings.
