DEPUTY Presidential Spokesman Gary Bocobo Olivar is playing deaf and dumb to the accusation that he violated the Dual Citizenship Law when he accepted an appointment to the government without renouncing his US citizenship as the law provides. Not a whimper out of him. Maybe he thinks that if he pretends the problem doesn?t exist, it would go away.
Well, it won?t. In fact, it?s about to get bigger and hit him like a 10-ton truck. Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz announced last Saturday that his party, Abakada, will file a charge of violation of the Dual Citizenship Law against Olivar.
While still very voluble as a mouthpiece of the President, Olivar has been very quiet about his own problem. He has left it to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to defend him. Ermita has said that Olivar is a dual citizen ?and need not renounce his foreign citizenship to be considered a Filipino citizen.?
Wrong. Former Senate President Franklin Drilon, principal author of the Dual Citizenship Law, pointed out that Section 5, paragraph 3 of RA 9225 states: ?Those appointed to public office shall subscribe and swear to an oath of allegiance to the Philippines and its duly constituted authorities prior to their assumption of office. Provided, that they renounce their oath of allegiance to the country where they took that oath.?
Obviously, Olivar has not done that because he is still using, and flaunting, his American passport.
A private citizen need not renounce his foreign citizenship, Drilon said, but those aspiring to seek public office, both elective and appointive, must first renounce their oath of allegiance to the foreign country where they acquired this second citizenship. Both the appointee and the appointing authority, in this case, GMA herself, are liable for prison terms, Drilon said.
As the deputy spokesman of the President, in fact her alter ego, Olivar is privy to a lot of government secrets, Congressman De la Cruz added. Isn?t it a security risk for a foreigner to be privy to Philippine government secrets? When there is a problem between the Philippine and US governments, to whom would Olivar be loyal? he asked.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Raul Gonzalez was criticized by Drilon as ?sleeping on the job? for failing to advise President Arroyo against the irregularity of appointing Olivar to a government post even before Olivar could renounce his American citizenship.
?Gonzalez was again caught sleeping on the job because he failed to advise Malacañang on the requirements of the Dual Citizenship Law,? Drilon said. Olivar must either renounce his American citizenship or quit his Malacañang job, he added. ?Olivar cannot have his cake and eat it, too. He cannot continue serving Malacañang as deputy spokesman and hold on to his US citizenship at the same time.
?Perhaps the reason President Arroyo has developed this nasty habit of constantly violating the Constitution is because he has a sleepy legal adviser,? Drilon said.
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Sen. Manny Villar, Nacionalista Party presidential candidate, got a dose of Drilon?s ire. It seems that Villar has another C-5 scandal in Drilon?s home province of Iloilo. Villar has a subdivision in Pavia, Iloilo called ?Savannah.? Some 12.7 hectares of Savannah were first-class irrigated rice lands which Villar?s company converted into residential land. The CARP law prohibits the conversion of irrigated rice lands to other uses, the reason being to safeguard food production. However, Villar?s company was able to make the Department of Agrarian Reform issue a conversion order.
?Former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rene Villa refused to sign the conversion order, but Villar?s company had his successor, Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, sign the conversion order,? Drilon said.
Villar?s company later bought adjacent lands, increasing the area of Savannah Subdivision to 250 hectares. Drilon said farmers were forced to sell their lands because of lack of irrigation because Villar?s company filled up an irrigation canal, thus blocking water flow to the farms.
?Villar has only one public works project in Iloilo,? Drilon said. ?That was a 585-meter highway, for which Villar used P4 million of his pork barrel. That highway led direct to his Savannah Subdivision.? The road project was in the 2003 General Appropriations Act and implemented via Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) 2004-249.
?The C-5 road controversy is just the tip of the iceberg. What we see is a pattern under which Villar?s subdivisions benefited from undue advantage allegedly because of influence peddling in government,? Drilon said.
He challenged Villar to open the books of his real estate companies and reveal to the Filipino people how many favorable land conversion orders he was able to secure from DAR ever since he became a high government official.
?In the name of transparency, I believe the Filipino people are entitled to know the land conversion processes in the DAR under which Villar was able to build his string of subdivisions,? Drilon said.
?After the discovery of this C-5-and-a-half land scam in Iloilo, Villar should now come clean and bare to the public his dealings with DAR.
?By opening his books and proving that the land conversion orders he secured from DAR are aboveboard, Villar will then be able to disprove long-standing rumors in the business community that he used his influence as a high government official to expand his vast private business empire,? Drilon said.
?I challenge Senator Villar to go beyond public rhetoric and open the books of private companies to disprove persistent allegations that he used his government influence to advance his private business interests.?
