By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
The title of this article was taken from the column of Boo Chanco in the business section of the Philippine Star.
He was referring to the recent acquittal of Bong Revilla from the charges of plunder. Indeed, every man or woman in the street thinks that Revilla should have been convicted for stealing P240M from the government or from the people. But the Sandiganbayan justices who voted for acquittal took the people as fools.
The acquittal was a big setback to the administration’s supposed anti-corruption drive. If the powers-that-be thought it did the country good because Revilla is their supporter, it actually set us back a hundred years in terms of morality and good governance.
So many lives of Filipinos could have been saved had that big money been used to improve hospitals or clinics or to buy medicines and food for those who have very limited means.
Milions of the youth could gain good education if that money were used for scholarships to benefit the poor but deserving students.
Millions could have been given decent housing had low cost houses been built with the use of that amount.
For emphasis, a lot could have been done to improve the lives of Filipinos and to avoid deaths in poorly equipped health facilities, and due to the inability to afford healthcare especially the expensive medical processes such as dialysis, kidney transplant, chemotherapy, etc.
The justification of this administration regarding the deaths of drug addicts and pushers is that they are destroying so many lives.
How about plunder? As aforesaid, plunder causes a lot of deaths. So why are plunderers going scot free and end up swaggering around. Should they not also be gunned down?
On the business side, the acquittal means our judicial system is unreliable if not very corrupt to the core. This scares so many potential investors who want to see a level playing field in the justice system.
What they are seeing now is that it is the small criminals who are going to jail while the big crooks are laughing on their way to investment houses. So the potential investors are bringing their money somewhere, including the jobs and opportunities they could have created which could benefit many of our citizens.
Want to improve this country? Shoot down the plunderers. Buy using the big amounts they are stealing to improve the lives of people, so many might even leave the illegal drugs business.
To belabor the point, the plunderers should be gunned down. Or to be human, should be convicted and sent to jail.
Those who are saying that they want to improve this country but allow plunderers to be acquitted, are just a joke.
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