Friday, February 01, 2008 Not just a reader's query
A SUN Star Pampanga reader, a certain Armando Canda of Mexico, wonders where the rest of the money donated to the campaign of Governor Eddie Panlilio went.
If, indeed, the total donation was P30 million, and about P4.7 million was listed in the Commission on Elections (Comelec) prescribed form, where is the rest of the funds and who were the undeclared and unnamed contributors? Canda wants to know.
In asking the simple, basic question, Canda used as basis what Archie Reyes, Panlilio's chief of staff, had admitted. That is: yes, there were donors whose names and contributions were not on the Comelec list.
And for a reason: the donors wanted anonymity.
Why so, more reasons can be put forth. But here's where the non-declaration of the other donors and their donations runs right smack into some real legal and moral problems, as Canda himself brings to the fore.
For instance, he says, the election law is very clear that a candidate should submit a list of expenditures and contributors, complying with the mandated P5 per voter expense.
Canda doesn't say outright that Panlilio is already legally culpable at this point.
But, he might as well be. If the governor got more donation than what he actually declared, shouldn't the Comelec or another government agency run after him for flaunting the law?
The evidence is there. The admission is there. The culprit is there.
Beyond legal culpability, Canda brings up another important issue, so important Panlilio can't and shouldn't ignore.
Are moral and ethical issues involved? His premise is that, if the law says this and Panlilio broke it, can he claim exemption by virtue of his priesthood? But where is equality before the law, Canda asks, if that were the case? Tough questions.
Canda, we supposed, isn't alone in wanting to hear what Panlilio -- not Reyes or another person from the Capitol or his camp -- has got to say in honest-to-goodness fashion.
He is, after all, a priest and a priest doesn't lie. That's his professed motivation, among others, for publicly admitting, albeit belatedly, the P500,000 in the brown bag he was handed to him in Malacañang last year.
The act, he impressed in no uncertain terms, suffered from impropriety. Very well.
Will the governor be as forthright and honest this time?
