Gov’t effective against poor but impotent against rich

Rolly Panesa was employed as a simple security guard, living an ordinary life like any common tao, when he was abducted and tortured by the combined elements of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army and the Philippine National Police on the night of Oct. 6, 2012. A simple life and honest living was all Panesa wanted. Coming from a humble family on Negros island, he had been working as a security guard since 1988 in various security agencies. Bruised and battered, he was detained at the Security Intensive Care Area, Metro Manila District Jail (Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City). He is still being kept there up to this moment. The government is accusing him of being a top-ranking communist leader.

Why is it easy for the government to illegally abduct and imprison a security guard without legal basis? “What have I done to deserve this imprisonment?” Panesa is asking.

Now here is Janet Lim-Napoles, accused of masterminding a scam involving billions of pesos in government money. Why is it difficult to capture her?

This leaves us to wonder: Where is the daang matuwid against corruption? Where is daang matuwid against injustice?

Some P10 billion in people’s money has been stolen. It could have saved thousands of children from dying in government hospitals. It could have provided  books and tuition  for our youth. It could have built more houses for the impoverished. It is simply mind-boggling, far beyond the shocking fertilizer scam in Gloria Arroyo’s presidency.

The inability of government to get those behind the scam sends a shameful message: Under the current administration, those behind big-time corruption have a good chance of getting away with it.

We hope that the whistle-blowers, like Benhur Luy, would not end up being persecuted and left alone to face cases filed against them.

—NORMA P. DOLLAGA
Kasimbayan
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