Allow me to react to Ramon Tulfo’s Feb. 21 column, “De Lima’s karma” (Metro, 2/21/17). He said that while there was no direct evidence linking former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) scam, “De Lima probably knew that if ever, it was GMA’s husband, Mike, who may have been the recipient of the booty.”
What Tulfo was saying in effect was, GMA was innocent; and if at all, the party guilty of having benefited from the scam was her husband. Can Tulfo, the hard-hitting opinion-maker, be that naive sometimes? Can he really say with absolute confidence that GMA was not aware of what her husband was doing during her reign?
Only recall that GMA was all over China with her husband at the time the NBN-ZTE deal was being “negotiated.” No less than the Senate investigated the “bukol” that whistle-blower Jun Lozada testified on. It later recommended the prosecution of GMA for corruption.
Did it really look to Tulfo that GMA had nothing to do with that “bukol” in the NBN-ZTE project? Did it really seem to him that GMA had left P365 million in PCSO’s intelligence funds entirely in the hands of its general manager, Rosario Uriarte—and did not know the latter was her husband’s stooge and gofer?
Come on, Mr. Tulfo, man up, man.
GRACE PO-QUICHO, gpq_rstu@yahoo.com.sg