A den of thieves

Commission on Audit’s Heidi Mendoza, again, failed to get the green light from the Commission on Appointments. So, what’s the CA’s excuse this time?

“Senator Jinggoy Estrada was absent.” And the senator, who is mired to his neck in the pork barrel scam, wanted to lob questions at Mendoza. At his own good time, of course.

Hindi siya nag-iisa.  Mendoza is not alone in the CA freezer. Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for good governance, went to his grave with confirmation snarled for years by Camarines Sur politicians.

Rep. Luis R. Villafuerte, an uncle of Robredo had a falling out with his nephew. A disqualification complaint against Robredo, in the Commission on Elections was rehashed, when he ran for mayor in 2007. In the other corner was Jojo Villafuerte, the congressman’s nephew.

 “We were deprived the honor of confirming a great man, one of the best in the Cabinet,” said Rep Roilo Golez (Parañaque). “His place in the history of public service is secure.... But it took two years before confirmation of Robredo, could even be scheduled.

There was wailing and gnashing of teeth by Villafuerte and all those who undercut Robredo. That’s par for a heavily politicized Commission of Appointments. It often resembles what Ali Baba called “a den of thieves.”

Mendoza is discovering that integrity and competence mean nothing in the CA. So did Robredo and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima before her. Concession is the only currency spoken there.

Earlier, de Lima slammed Estrada over reports that the senator would block her confirmation. She is a key prober in the pork scam. And her confirmation, like that of Mendoza, has been shunted aside by the CA for four years now.

Estrada’s statement was “practically blackmail, the justice secretary snapped... If non-confirmation is the price that I have to pay for doing my job, so be it... I serve at the pleasure of the President. And I’ll continue as long as I have his trust and support of the public.

“Iyon ang importante sa akin, hindi 'yung isang naghahari-harian lang sa Senate or sa CA,” De Lima said. (That’s what is important to me, not someone who lords it over the Senate or the CA.)

Belatedly, Estrada called up De Lima to deny he’d block the secretary’s confirmation—which is now possible this time around.

In 2011, then Senator Panfilo Lacson said he’d grill De Lima after she ordered a manhunt for Lacson over the Dacer-Corbito double murder case. Lacson went into hiding for 14 months. And he questioned De Lima’s stand that the court decision, clearing him, was not final and executory then. From fugitive on the lam, Lacson morphed into Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery.

Tiene cojones. “She has balls” was the irreverent accolade people heaped on Heidi Mendoza. A COA officer for 22 years, she audited the comptroller’s office of the Armed Forces and documented plunder of AFP funds. That included a P200-million reimbursement check from the United Nations for Filipino peacekeepers.

Mendoza’s report was stashed in the freezer. She resigned from a comfortable Asian Development Bank job to testify, on an almost P510-million AFP loss she traced, before by congressional hearings, Former Major Gen. Carlos Garcia is in prison today.

So, why is Mendoza  still unconfirmed, asked Inquirer’s columnist Solita Monsod two years back. And when did Mendoza get into the gunsight of Vice President Jejomar Binay and his attack squads?

Rewind 12 years back, Monsod suggests.  COA then formed a “Special Task Force “to go thru contracts involving purchases and infrastructure projects of Metro Manila local government units. Mendoza was assigned Makati. And her team went thru contracts for office partitions and furniture of the Makati City government, as well as city hospital for the years 2000 and 2001.”

The audit nailed Makati overlords. Award on furniture was made on Sept 15, two days before the bidding on Sept. 17... Bidding companies had the same owners but different addresses. The warehouse of one bidding company is located at the same address used by the City of Makati in sending a letter of invitation intended for another bidding company, ad nauseam.

Then, why did the Sandiganbayan dismiss one of the four cases filed against Elenita Binay, asked Monsod.   “Sandiganbayan found that the prosecution came to court with “shoddy evidence... It might however, be germane that the Sandiganbayan dismissed the case in 2011, when Binay was already VP.

So, the real question is: Why years after she was appointed as COA commissioner, is she still unconfirmed? “She was with the COA for 22 years, before she quit in 2006—and her record is spotless. That she quit the ADB is a testament to her complete indifference to financial security. Her statements of assets, liabilities and net worth show no unexplained wealth.”

Ah, there’s the rub. It is an open secret, in the COA secretariat, that the one responsible for this situation is—guess who?—the Binay camp, Monsod adds. “If Binay & Co. think Mendoza wants her job so much she can be persuaded to  soft-pedal on her  findings Makati and the corruption there, it has another think coming.”

Now, Binay lusts to be President in 2016. And guess who he floats as his vice president after Batangas Governor Vilma Santos-Recto said no thank you sir? 

Jinggoy Estrada. That’s who. Pag may tiktik, may aswang, the old Pilipino proverb says. Whenever there is a tiktik (bird), there is a witch (aswang).