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Thursday, March 04, 2004
Sonny seeks Senate probe on Vidal intel report
By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
CEBUANO Sen. John “Sonny” Osmeña vowed yesterday to ask the Senate committee on national defense and security to look into the motive of the military’s intelligence service for including the Cebu archbishop in a list of figures behind destabilization plots.
He said the resolution will also ask the committee, headed by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, “to look into the quality of the intelligence-gathering” of the Intelligence Service, Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp).
Irresponsible
Osmeña joined the call of Gov. Pablo Garcia and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña for Cebuanos to rally behind Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. He also criticized Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., who bared Isafp’s list of personalities and groups, for quoting an “irresponsible source” in a report.
“He succumbed to temptation,” he said of Pimentel in an interview over radio dyHP yesterday.
Osmeña, who is now allied with the administration, also announced that he will tell President Arroyo during K-4’s sortie in Puerto Princesa today to make sure to cut off former Isafp commander Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus’ “influence” on the intelligence service.
“Lain na siya ug ulo. Di normal, duna’y katok, (He thinks differently),” he said of Corpus.
The senator also urged Fr. Carmelo Diola, convenor of Citizens for Judicial Independence (CJI), Kamatuoran, and Barug Pilipino, to organize a similar group to support Vidal amid the controversy.
But Fr. Diola said the charges against Vidal are “so ludicrous” that he does not see any need to organize one.
No need
“Any sensible person will laugh at it (charges). Unless His Eminence would call for it, I don’t see any need to organize a rally,” he told Sun.Star.
What needs to be done, he said, is to find out who are behind the allegations and whoever has been “manipulating the report should stop what his doing.”
“It will only backfire on them,” he added.
Senator Osmeña said he was surprised when Pimentel, who is supposed to be a “responsible” colleague, announced the report.
He said it was wrong to accuse Vidal, whom he described as the “real leader of the Catholic Church in the Philippines,” of being involved in a destabilization plot.
Like Tomas, the senator said Vidal is so unlike former Manila archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, who tends to be aggressive at times.
(March 4, 2004 issue)
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