Revilla charade ‘such a waste of money’
We cannot help chuckling after reading the front-page story “Bong sues whistle-blower” (11/1/13). Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla was said to have filed a damage suit against the whistle-blowers of the P10-billion pork barrel scam, demanding that the latter return some P500 million of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) they allegedly received from him over the years with “fictitious documents.”
Without going into the merits of that suit, one wonders what the whole point of that charade is. First of all, it is such a waste of money. The docket and filing fees for such claim easily amounted to no less than P10 million. (Well, okay, it’s bonanza for the judiciary whose need for salary increases is never satisfied!) Secondly, if the claim is for the “return” of PDAF unlawfully taken, which clearly involves public funds, should not the recovery suit be filed by the real party in interest, the government? Does Senator Revilla consider those funds part of his personal patrimony? He also throws in his demands for moral damages arising from what he believes is nothing but malicious machination to make him appear guilty of grand larceny.
It is evidently a run-of-the-mill counteroffensive on the part of the accused, designed to turn the tables on the accuser. It is meant to throw the latter off-guard, to distract him from his own accusation thereby weakening it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—depending on the enterprising lawyer’s legerity and/or legerdemain. Again, we cannot help wondering: Did Senator Revilla spend his own “hard-earned money” to bankroll that gambit? And he ought to have known over the years how his PDAF had been feloniously misspent, ought he not? So why is he taking action only now, after the scam has blown up in his face?
—GEORGE DEL MAR,
