Wednesday, August 06, 2008 Carvajal: Justice delayed By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
IT was supposed to be an open and shut case. Overprice of the lampposts was glaring and blatant, a sneering insult to the decency of ordinary folks.
But from the very start, there were signs of a whitewash. First, high ranking signatories in Manila were not included in the cases filed. The excuse was they were still investigating and weighing the evidence against the big guns. But so far we haven’t heard any developments along this line.
Instead what is thrown in our stunned faces is the withdrawal by the Office of the Ombudsman of the information filed in court against the lesser mortals in the scam. They are withdrawing the information claiming they want their case strengthened with the inclusion of the Commission on Audit (COA) report.
If the COA report is included in the information filed, will the big guns be included finally in the case? I doubt that very much because I have a strong suspicion the big guns were spared so they could work out something to save their cohorts in the lower ranks. The excuse to strengthen the case against the lower ranking officials of local government units and the Department of Public Works and Highways is really just a lot of bull. Like I said, and like everybody knows, the lamppost scam was an open and shut case. The overprice was glaring and blatant.
The Office of the Ombudsman is supposed to be under heavy pressure from concerned citizens to speed up the prosecution of those involved in the lamppost scam. What is their answer to this pressure from the citizenry?
They delay the case further, perhaps succumbing instead to the pressure of the puppeteers who hold the strings that make subordinates play their game.
This brings me to the suspicion I dread the most that the Office of the Ombudsman is under extreme pressure to delay the case indefinitely until people forget. The pressure could be in the form of threats or incentives. I could, of course, be wrong in my suspicions but nobody can blame me if I, and others like me, suspect something fishy in this new development.
The courts are supposed to be the last bastion of decency in government. But there are signs that the courts are caught also in the web of corruption that has this country in a most devastating stranglehold. If true, then we are going to the dogs morally. We have lost all sense of decency and pure unmitigated greed is running this country. But then we also know that already.
Hence, for whatever it is worth, I am appealing to whatever decency is left in our government officials, especially in our courts, to give justice to our people by not delaying it. The lampposts were bought almost two years ago.
Many of them do not work anymore when expensive stuff are supposed to last. Does it really take this long to bring those responsible to justice?
