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By Anthony Vargas, Reporter
PRESENT and former members of the House of Representatives should
face the Senate probe into the P720-million fertilizer fund scam, a
prominent bishop said.
“What they will say will definitely be helpful
in the cause because it will reveal more information behind the
controversy,” said outspoken Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar
Cruz, adding it will help unravel the truth behind the alleged
malversation of public funds.
The Senate Blue Ribbon committee chaired by Sen.
Alan Peter Cayetano will reopen the investigation into the alleged
fertilizer fund scam on Thursday.
The lawmakers should tell how much they
received, where it was used and why they were only the ones who were
given the funds, said Cruz, a vocal critic of the Arroyo
administration.
“Because, as of now, only one thing is
certain, they are all allies of GMA [President Arroyo],” the
Pangasinan prelate said on the website of the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines.
The Archbishop’s remarks came after Sen.
Aquilino Pimentel Jr. this week sought for the inclusion of
incumbent and former congressmen in the investigation by the Senate
blue-ribbon committee.
Former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn
“Joc-Joc” Bolante, who was deported by the United States last
month, is alleged to have masterminded the fertilizer fund
diversion to boost the campaign coffers of
President Arroyo during the May 2004 presidential election.
Cruz and church officials have appealed to
Bolante to attend the senate probe. Bolante remains confined at the
St. Luke’s Hospital.
Sen. Francis Escudero said Bolante has no
serious sickness that needs hospitalization. He believes Bolante is
feigning illness as way out of a Senate appearance.
He said the Senate foreign relations committee
has aggressively probed the so-called “euro generals” of the
Philippine National Police over the mysterious P6.9-million fund
questioned by Russian customs police, but certain senators have been
dragging their feet on the Bolante case.
“In Joc-Joc’s case, its 700 times more than
that amount,” Escudero pointed out. “I hope they are showing
anger 100 times over.”
He said he knows of only two persons today whose
health is subject to a lot of speculation: Bolante and North Korean
dictator Kim Jong Il, who was reported to have suffered a stroke and
has not been seen in public for months now.
“The big difference is that while Kim wants
his people to believe that he is healthy, Bolante is going to great
lengths to convince us that he is sick,” Escudero said.
Several senators, including Escudero, have
sought the reopening of the Senate inquiry into the fertilizer fund.
Sen. Edgardo Angara, current chairman of the Senate Agriculture
Committee, has refused calls for a fresh investigation, saying the
Office of the Ombudsman should now handle the probe.
Sen. Mar Roxas yesterday voiced concern that the
Ombudsman will likely throw out the plunder charges against Bolante
and other Arroyo officials.
He rebuked Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for
dismissing the graft charges filed against Bolante by slain
journalist Marlene Esperat in 2003, adding it could be the start of
an official whitewash of anomalies in the agriculture sector.
“Ang kapalit ng pagtataksil na ito ay ang
buhay ni Esperat [The price for this betrayal is Esperat’s
life],” Roxas said regarding the Ombudsman’s decision this
week to junk the graft charges filed by Esperat in 2003 against
Bolante, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap and other Department of
Agriculture officials in relation to a P432-million fertilizer fund
that never reached farmer-beneficiaries.
Esperat was a former journalist who filed the
graft charges as resident Ombudsman of the DA’s Central Mindanao
office. She was gunned down before her children in their home in
Sultan Kudarat.
-- With Sammy Martin
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