Dirty Hands of Gloria II

P325M is such a huge amount. But where did it go? Was it really used for used for intelligence operations? For us Filipinos?

Since Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is no longer the president. She doesn’t possess any immunity against that case. She could no longer make her presidency as an alibi. Now, she’s facing a new chapter which could change and prove her dishonesty when she was still the president.

Plunder, to rob or fleece and it is an unbailable offense, a case which GMA is now facing. Acting Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro ordered the probe in the wake of revelations made during Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearings on the PCSO fund anomalies.

Filipinos elected her to help us not to fool us. She made us look dumb and gullible. She could have helped us solve poverty, but instead, “giunay ta niya”. What Filipinos worked for was put into waste.

There are tons and tons of things which a P325M could do to us. It could shelter and feed the poor. It could help recover those who were hit by typhoons. But what happened is that, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

This time, it’s pay back time. Maybe this time, the truth will prevail.

Dirty Hands of Gloria

Gloria Arroyo may face plunder over PCSO spy fund

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now Pampanga representative, may face charges of plunder over allegations that she had approved the allocation of hundreds of millions of pesos in charity funds for possibly nonexistent projects.

The smoking gun: board memoranda of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) requesting additional funds for intelligence operations that she approved from 2008 to 2010.

Former PCSO General Manager Rosario Uriarte on Thursday confirmed before the Senate blue ribbon committee that Arroyo had signed or initialed the memos in her presence.

The PCSO spent P325 million in confidential intelligence funds from 2008 to 2010, according to Uriarte.

“These are very damaging. The Ombudsman should take a look at these testimonies and see what liability the former President has,” Senator Franklin Drilon said after the hearing.

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, chair of the blue ribbon committee, was more forthright: “It implicates the former President in this whole mystery. It makes her a coconspirator… When you steal more than P50 million, it’s plunder.”

The anti-plunder law defines plunder as the direct or indirect amassing by a public official of at least P50 million in ill-gotten wealth through a combination or a series of acts like misappropriating public funds and illegal disposition of government assets. Plunder is a nonbailable offense.

In Malacañang, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the Aquino administration would not hesitate to file charges against Arroyo if the Senate probe would yield enough proof to link her to any wrongdoing.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, however, said the committee could not pin down Arroyo over Uriarte’s disclosures.

“Of course the approving authority is the President. The President probably relied on their representation. There are a lot of things that have to be unearthed first before you can pin down the responsibility for the approving authority,” Enrile later told reporters.

Being a member of the House of Representatives, Arroyo could not be invited to the inquiry.

Grilled by senators for hours, Uriarte said the PCSO made the biggest spending—P138 million out of the approved P160 million in intelligence fund—in 2010, an election year.

Arroyo signed the PCSO memos requesting additional intelligence funds from 2008 to 2010 and in Uriarte’s presence. The former PCSO executive pointed out that all intelligence funds needed the President’s approval.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/22097/gloria-arroyo-may-face-plunder-over-pcso-spy-fund