THE DECISION of the Sandiganbayan to acquit former senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr. of plunder is a dreadful Christmas gift to the public as it has boosted his shameless confidence to run again for public office.
Revilla still has to stand trial for 16 graft cases related to the plunder charge of which he was exonerated, but he wants to run again for the Senate to face what he calls his “false accusers.”
In fact, even before the promulgation, Revilla had filed his certificate of candidacy with the Commission on Elections while still detained at Camp Crame.
It doesn’t faze Revilla one bit that his own staffer, Richard Cambe, had been convicted along with pork barrel mastermind Janet Lim Napoles of plunder.
The court said it failed to trace the involvement of Revilla in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) transactions since his signatures in the endorsement letters to the fake non-government organizations organized by Napoles had been forged.
The verdict upheld the possibility that the money received by Cambe was kept by him and was not given to Revilla and that the former senator was unaware of Cambe and Napoles’s transactions.
But the amount involved, P224 million, should indicate that, if indeed Cambe had pocketed the money, his boss the senator was complicit for incompetence and gross negligence.
How could he have been unaware that such a big amount from his PDAF had been stolen?
Moreover, it should be noted that Revilla, as a public official, has an overwhelming unexplained wealth.
In 2010, the former senator’s bank account accumulated P170, 981 280 but he only declared P81,164,851 in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth on the same year.
How could anyone believe that the pocketing of PDAF to the boss’s own wallet by a staff was done outside the boss’s watch?
One could not turn a blind eye to an illegal transaction involving millions of pesos of public funds as this could only be possible if it is supported by someone of power who would also benefit from the corruption.
Lawyer Cambe and businesswoman Napoles are not Revilla’s good samaritans to just voluntarily funnel millions on Revilla’s bank accounts without getting any help in return from the senator.
But despite being dragged to one of the country’s biggest corruption issues, Revilla, along with Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada, still has the face to run for a seat in the Senate.
Why are we allowing this?
Elections are avenues for the public to hope for a change, but if the people would just keep on voting for corrupt politicians and known plunderers, the cycle of corruption will just continue to flourish.
Filipinos should be more critical in choosing those who will have a hand in running the country. Filipinos, now more than ever, should know better.
