Sonny O and the pork barrel
National legislators, in particular five senators and 28 congressmen who are implicated in the alleged misuse and abuse of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) according to a report by the Commission on Audit, cannot be expected to talk frankly about the issue because that would be going against their self-interest.
“The right against self-incrimination forbids the state from compelling any person to give testimonial evidence that would likely incriminate him during a subsequent criminal case.” This ironclad doctrine virtually shields congressmen and senators from speaking on the burning issue of the day.
How about congressmen and senators who supposedly have not soiled their hands by receiving kickbacks from their PDAF, or those who did not accept a pork barrel as a matter of principle?
Sad to say, they are also not talking lest ma-kontrahan nya sila sa ilang mga kauban (their colleagues would gang up on them), which indicates that the probe to be initiated by the Senate could end up with sanitized reports. This, notwithstanding the perception that Senator Teofisto TG Guingona III, who chairs the Blue Ribbon Committee is a good and trustworthy man.
But what about former legislators like newly elected Toledo City Mayor John “Sonny” Osmeña who is now excluded from the old boys’ club culture of the Senate?
I chanced upon Sonny when I entered Café Laguna restaurant in Ayala last Monday to attend a media briefing for the 2013 International Contact Center Conference and Expo.
The ICCCE is a summit of contact centers all over the world and it is being held for the first time in Cebu City. The importance of the Philippines as the venue of the summit underscores the countyr’s no. 1 rank in the industry.
This predominance is validated by thousands of delegates who signed up for the conference as well as the participation of some 75 chief executive officers of major contact centers in the three-day event.
The Shangrila Mactan Resort and the Radisson Blu in Cebu City will host the series of events and although I missed the opening yesterday because of my newspaper deadline, I intend to catch up today and Friday.
After the ICCCE news gathering I went to interview Mayor Sonny in the mall’s bookstore. (See Malou Guanzon’s article about the interview on page 27 – Editor)
Is Sonny a credible source to spill the beans on the pork barrel system?
Elected Cebu city councilor in 1953, Sonny became vice mayor in 1958. In 1969 he won a Senate seat, but his first term as a national legislator was cut short by the declaration of martial law in 1972.
Under the first Aquino administration in 1986, Sonny was appointed officer-in-charge of Cebu city. He returned to legislative work in 1987 by becoming senator in the first democratic elections after martial law. He served two successive terms until 1995. Faced with the constitutional ban on term limits, he ran and won the Congress seat of Cebu’s 3rd district in 1995.
In 1998, he ran again for senator and handily won. After 1998, the string of electoral victories was broken. He suffered his first political defeat in the senate race of 2004. This was followed by another debacle when he ran for senator in 2007, and again in 2010 when he ran for mayor of Cebu city. He withdrew his candidacy a few weeks before the local elections.
A less than determined politician would have thrown in the towel, but politics is really in Sonny’s blood. In May 2013, he challenged and prevailed over then incumbent mayor Aurelio Espinosa in the mayoralty race of Toledo City.
Sonny has gone full circle. The Toledo City mayorship is seen to conclude his political career, or maybe not, because he will surely be in interview circuits for his revelations about the pork barrel system.
I was totally unprepared to hear him say the political hiatus (2004 to 2012) drove him to depression that almost caused him to commit suicide. I have yet to go into the details of this very personal account that is so uncharacteristic of the feisty senator, but I must say he has found happiness in his old age.
The raison d’être is a treasure remotely connected with politics.
