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Monday, October 03, 2005
Editorial: Manila connection
FROM what the opposition lawyers said, things didn't go smoothly when Mayor Vicente Emano testified before the Ombudsman Manila in relation to the graft charges filed against him by lawyer Ed Tamondong.
According to Tamondong, a former official at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee when it was then chaired by Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and former state prosecutor Rogelio Bagabuyo, the mayor was his own worst enemy during the proceedings.
The two said the mayor responded to questions with answers that are unrelated and thus irrelevant to the issues at hand; namely whether the so-called "piso-piso" lot program had become disadvantageous to the government.
Irrelevant in the sense that Emano continued to protest his innocence even when that wasn't the main issue. Tamondong and Bagabuyo were one in saying that the mayor's insistence to take the witness stand justified the reasons why Emano's former lawyer, Fred Gapuz, didn't allow the mayor to appear before the witness stand and answer questions.
But that's moot and elementary for now. What is apparent is that the Emano administration camp won't find it easy to get themselves extricated out of the web of charges spun on them by their opposition foes.
Now there are two directions in which the case can go; either the charges would be dismissed or as Tamondong and Bagabuyo pointed out, it would then be forwarded to the Sandiganbayan which means Emano and the officials would be meted 90-day suspensions each.
Little wonder then that opposition Councilor Zaldy Ocon gave this development uninterrupted, commercial-free exposure saying that the listeners have kept in calling to learn whether this would deal a serious blow to the Emano claim to political invulnerability.
If the Ombudsman submits this to the Sandiganbayan this means that the shift in venue has done much to strip the case of any political leanings, relying instead on the evidence at hand to determine its merits.
Also with the Sandiganbayan handling Emano's case the chances of political influence playing a role in their resolution has dimmed considerably--unless of course if the mayor still has a hotline to the Palace which can then help him considerably.
It was after all in Manila where then Misamis Oriental Governor Vicente Emano lost his electoral case before then rival, gubernatorial aspirant Ruthie de Lara Guingona. Maybe this Manila connection may do him in again.
(October 3, 2005 issue)
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