THE PARTIDO Demokratiko ng Pilipinas (PDP) urged the Philippine government to allow the return of former President Rodrigo Duterte to the country.
It is our take that the leadership of the PDP is misguided in its appeal. We do not think that the Philippine government is blocking the return of FPRRD to the Philippines. After all, there is no move or effort by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is detaining the former Philippine leader, to send him back to the country. In fact, the petition by the defense lawyers of the former President for the ICC to grant him an interim release has been rejected.
So, in that case, there is nothing that the Philippine government will reject, as there is no such move, request, or ruling by the ICC.
We therefore believe that the PDP, for lack of proper guidance, appears to be barking up the wrong tree. What the Party should have done is submit a forceful petition to the ICC demanding that the former President Duterte be released and allowed to go back to the Philippines.
And if luck favors the former President’s party, that should now be the time that it demands the Philippine government to allow the former leader’s return.
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The independent Commission that will be tasked to investigate the anomaly-laden flood control projects mostly in Luzon and the Visayas is now in place. Those who were tapped by the President to compose the independent probe body were two retired Supreme Court senior justices and a forensic expert. The retired SC justices are former Senior Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Estela Perlas Bernabe. The forensic expert has not been identified.
We have no reason to doubt the capability and integrity of the two former Supreme Court justices. But possibly because of former Justice Carpio’s known disagreements with former President Duterte on certain issues and his no-holds-barred tirades with top government officials if he feels he is not in accord with their position, there are those who are quick to doubt his fairness, especially when the investigation may unnecessarily trace back the issues to the previous administration.
Situation like this, we believe, is the main deterrent to the country’s push for socio-economic development and the streamlining of our justice and political system
Think of these: all sectors in Philippine society are calling for an end to corruption. They demand that corrupt government officials and their private citizen conspirators be immediately charged and slapped with the appropriate penalties.
But even before those tasked to initiate the necessary action to bring the corrupt personalities to the court, suspicion of fairness and impartiality is already cast on the designated probers.
Indeed, the dragon that is the massive corruption that has long been showing, initially its head, and now boldly displaying its whole body as manifested by the brazen display of the corrupt personalities’ stolen wealth, will never be slaughtered.
What with those partisans who are quick to cast aspersion on the motive of anyone seeking to fight the corruption dragon?
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Now, are we having our biggest regret?
When we were in our secondary years, our parents were pushing us to take a civil engineering course in college. We did not follow them. Instead, we took another course, the one that we believed would lead us to our Shangri-La.
Of course, we ended up having a happy family life despite our being devoid of any semblance of wealth.
But having witnessed the luxurious living of engineers working at the Department of Public Works and Highways, we could not help but think what would have become of us had we heeded the suggestion of our parents and worked with the DPWH.
Maybe we could have been rich starting from years back. That is, if we were unable to resist the temptation of corruption.
Our decision to disobey our parents, though, was worth our profuse thanks. We ended up working in employment where the temptation for corruption is nil.
