Abad and company’s criminal liability
Part ISecretary Florencio “Butch” Abad of the Department of Budget and Management should understand that not all are stupid to swallow hook, line and sinker their propaganda. It is an SOP in government service that the public official releasing the money without examining and verifying the person to whom he is going to hand over said public fund is more liable than the person who claimed to be entitled to the fund.
The burden and the guilt is more on him because it was he who parted the money that made possible the commission of that large-scale swindling of government funds. The public could even accuse him of conspiring with Janet Napoles in looting the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) because all the releases were assumed to be with his approval in gross violation of his sworn duty as the principal custodian of public funds. Abad, as one lawyer pointed out, cannot stand as aggrieved party and use his position as budget secretary as a defense because he is not the owner of those billions of pesos that were stashed, but mere custodian.
In case of loss, the person-in-charge assumes liability for everything lost in his office. This explains why Malacañang is frantic in doing everything to exculpate Secretary Abad from their miscalculated bombshell in wanting to wipe out the opposition. It was a miscalculated gambit because the fallout could open the door for the impeachment of the author of the so-called tuwid na daan slogan. As secretary, Abad acts as the alter ego of the President that a declaration of unconstitutionality for releasing those funds without any corresponding appropriations approved by Congress can be blamed on Noynoy Aquino.
Abad should have known it that many bank tellers and employees have been summarily dismissed from the service and even made to pay the lost amount not because they stole the money, but because of negligence. That liability goes down to the last man who facilitated the release of the fund. The so-called mastermind need not even identify the employees in the DBM who helped her in the release of those checks and pointed to the projects to be funded by those bogus NGOs. We are saying this because there is no allegation that Janet Napoles stole those checks or used forged signatures to secure their release. If everything was in order, but the money somehow ended up in the wrong hands, that liability remains with Secretary Abad and his retinue in the DBM.
To allow Abad to use that defense is tantamount to saying that stupidity and negligence are valid grounds for those who consciously and knowingly allowed the crime to happen just to escape liability. Abad stands as the most guilty compared to the three senators this hypocritical yellow government has been maligning for as said, all those involved in the diversion of the PDAF could not have carried out their crime with impunity had Abad not let go the money he was supposed to take care with utmost diligence.
If we are to venture further, the cases filed or may be filed against the alleged mastermind for large-scale malversation, and plunder cannot be made a monopoly of Napoles. Abad and all those corrupt rats in the DBM should be made co-accused. Maybe they can deny conspiracy, but who will swallow their alibi? Remember, the release of those funds in favor of those bogus NGOs organized by Napoles has been going on for years and almost became a routine office work for those people in the DBM that even the “surots” in Malacañang began to wonder why Napoles was always around as if to fetch water from a natural spring.
The longer the alleged list of Napoles implicating government officials targeted for political smearing, the deeper will Abad sink because that will not erase the fact about his liability. Even their bringing in Ruby Tuason as their state witness would not help to exculpate Abad’s liability because it boils down to what we say in the vernacular, “Natutulog si Abad sa pancitan.”
Tuason’s being made a state witness is questionable for as former Supreme Court Justice Vicente Mendoza explained, the grant of that privilege is the domain of the court, not the Department of Justice nor that of the Ombudsman. That means the socialite rat will have to be charged first, and only while standing as accused where the court will have the first hand opportunity to determine whether she is entitled to that status of being made a state witness.
Even on their malicious motive to pin down the three senators using Ruby Tuason as their mynah would not help to seal the case against the three. On the contrary, the DOJ and the Ombudsman, which have been reduced as unofficial departments of Malacañang, would have difficulty explaining to the public their circus. The crux of the crime is on who made that crime possible. In fact, the issue of who benefited from the crime Tuason committed is only incidental.
Attempts to recover the proceeds of the crime would only prosper after the court established that a crime was committed by her, and that means naming the socialite as the one who got hold of those funds directly from the government. Only then can the court proceed to run after the senators who allegedly benefited from the heist committed by Tuason, but again that boils down to the incompetence and gross negligence of Abad and his minions in the DBM. The DBM should know how much was stolen, and not for the DBM to ask Napoles and Tuason the amount the two stole. If they do not know that, then they have no case to file against Tuason and Napoles, stupid!
To be precise, no sensible court can proceed to demand the amount pocketed by those who benefited from the crime committed by Tuason, unless she first account how much she encashed from the government coffers. It is on that basis where the court could possibly accede to her allegation supported by hard evidence of giving so much to the senators with the rest pocketed by her. We call it in the vernacular, “cuentas claras.”
rpkapunan@gmail.com
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