Finally, plunder

She once pardoned a former president convicted of plunder; now Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo faces a plunder case of her own. It took some time in coming, but the case, involving her misuse of the so-called intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office amounting to a total of P366 million during the last three years of her presidency, has the advantage of patient preparation. It looks solid, designed to withstand the toughest scrutiny.

To be sure, the timing is somewhat suspect. The case was filed a week before President Aquino’s third State of the Nation Address. But Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales has a deserved reputation for straight-shooting work; she has already junked a first plunder case against Arroyo (because conspiracy was not proved) and removed her from an electoral sabotage case (because the evidence was insufficient).

One of Arroyo’s lawyers, Anacleto Diaz, immediately played the Sona card. Speaking after the news of the filing spread, he said: “It appears that the case was filed against the former President to time it with the President’s forthcoming Sona in which he will be accorded another opportunity to pillory and demonize the former President, and worse, justify her further detention without bail even as a petition for her bail is precisely pending resolution in the court.”

But the filing of the case could not have been a complete surprise; the abuses of the PCSO’s intelligence funds (why, it bears asking again, does a charity organization have an intel fund in the first place?) were the subject of a Senate investigation last year. The Senate blue ribbon committee recommended the filing of plunder and technical malversation charges against Arroyo and the PCSO general manager at the time, Rosario Uriarte. The case filed by the Ombudsman not only describes the crime with greater specificity (diverting special funds “in the guise of fictitious expenditures”); it also widens the scope of liability, adding seven more names to the charge sheet.

(The list includes another former PCSO chief, Manuel Morato, who served as a member of the PCSO board during the time in question and became a fierce critic of Mr. Aquino’s presidential candidacy. Morato’s denial includes a revealing notion of government service. “The use and release of the intelligence funds are between the President and the PCSO president. I was only a director from 2004 to 2010. Our job is only ministerial. How can we override something which had already been approved by the main parties concerned?” That view makes the PCSO board a mere rubber stamp, and explains much of the culture of complicity that made “unmoderated greed” synonymous with the second half of Arroyo’s nine years in office.)

Aside from a general statement from Diaz that Arroyo’s counsels were “ready to prove that the present charges against her are devoid of merit,” much of the initial response from her legal team dealt with procedure. Indubitably, the accused are entitled to file a motion for reconsideration with the Ombudsman.

But the substance of the case positively cries out to be heard by the Sandiganbayan. Consider the evidence the Ombudsman’s staff said they had marshalled: the diversion of parts of PCSO operating budget to intelligence funds, the illegal transfer of these intelligence funds to bankroll “fictitious” spending, the lack of supporting documents for “identical one-page requests” for intelligence funds, the lack of receipts, the failure to follow proper liquidation procedure.

The set of witnesses include current PCSO board secretary Eduardo Araullo, who presumably has access to internal documentation, and PCSO Assistant General Manager Mercedes Hinayon.

It will be tempting for President Aquino on Monday to claim the plunder case as an achievement, not so much of his administration, but of the new dispensation his election ushered in. The obvious bears belaboring: a case like this couldn’t have been filed under Morales’ predecessor. A Senate investigation under the previous administration wouldn’t have enjoyed the full cooperation of concerned government agencies. Witnesses wouldn’t have been emboldened to come forward.

But the President would do well to stop short of such a claim. The Ombudsman’s action, after all, is independent of the Executive. Let a general statement about the cases filed against Arroyo suffice. The public would know how to fill in the blanks.