Stoning whistle-blowers

Photos of well-coiffed legislators at the President’s State-of-the-Nation address crams today’s media. Fine. But keep those festering issues up front, too. Take whistle-blowers.

Benhur Luy ripped the P10 billion pork of five senators and 23 congressmen funneled into 20 bogus nongovernment organizations.  Luy owes the American activist Ralph Nader. In the 1970s, Nader cobbled “whistle-blower” to tag those who expose sleaze.

Luy alleged he’d been detained by scam brains. Janet Lim-Napoles of JLN Corp sued Luy. Thursday, Luy badgered for—and got a provisional Witness Protection Program shield. If a warrant  of  arrest  is served, the Justice Department will inform Pasig’s Judge Danilo Buemiot that Luy is under government protection, Justice Secretary Leila De Lima  said.

When whistle-blowers end up as accused, it’s time to ask: Is today’s policy to canonize thieves as crusaders? Indeed, “governments must create an environment that encourages, instead of penalizes citizens who denounce venality,” urged the 9th International Anti-Corruption meeting in South Africa.  The Philippines and 134 other countries cobbled that yardstick.

Remember  “Deep Throat”?  In 1972, this whistle-blower slipped to Washington Post data on White House involvement in the Watergate scandal. The uproar led to jail terms for five White House officials. Richard Nixon wrote a  one sentence letter: “I resign as President of the United States.”

Vanity Fair magazine, 31 years later reported that “Deep Throat” was former Federal Bureau of Investigation associate director Mark Felt. The Post’s executive editor during Watergate Benjamin Bradlee confirmed  the report.

We have our share of “Deep Throats.” Banker Clarissa Ocampo testified that Joseph Estrada signed the notorious Jose Velarde account—which she refused to certify. Threats cascaded in. Auditor Heidi Mendoza testified on her documentation of a P510 million theft by the Armed Forces of the Philippines Comptroller’s Office. General Carlos Garcia has been convicted. But a partisan Commission on Appointments refused to confirm President Benigno Aquino III’s appointment of Mendoza as Commission on Audit (COA) commissioner

“The nail that sticks out gets hammered  down,” the Filipino axiom warns.  Ensign Philip Pestaño bucked in 1997 the misuse of Navy boats to haul illegal lumber and drugs. He was shot in his cabin. Ombudsman  Conchita Carpio-Morales reinstituted murder charges stalled for decades. Miriam College academic supervisor Antonio Calipjo-Go exposed flawed textbooks. False charges were filed and some columnists smeared him.

After Land Bank’s Acsa Ramirez blew the whistle on tax scams, National Bureau of Investigation agents shoved her into a police line-up which  president Gloria Arroyo used her as photo op. Shanghaied by government agents, Rodolfo “Jun“ Lozada testified before the Senate how a ZTE broadband loan, for US $132 million ballooned into to US $329 million. Overrun authors remain scot free. Still guarded by Catholic nuns today, Lozada is harassed by charges.

Not every whistleblower is a candidate for beatification. Former police officer Cezar Mancao II, who offered to blow the whistle on the Bubby Dacer murder bolted  his National Bureau of Investigation cell when courts ordered his transfer to jail.

Remember Mary “Rosebud” Ong? She blew the whistle on intelligence officers sloshing in narcotics trade. Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Vidal Doble revealed the tampering of the “Garci” tapes. Primitivo Mijares was one of Ferdinand Marcos’ chief propagandists. He wrote the  book  “Conjugal Dictatorship” and testified  against  the dictatorship. Mijares disappeared in 1977 and his 10-year-old son was murdered.

Auditors are constitutional whistle-blowers. COA has gone through pork barrel funds from 2007 to 2009, Chairperson Ma. Grace Pulido-Tan  revealed.  Funds squandered already exceed P10 billion.  Both administration and opposition legislators splurged.  COA’s  next  report  will  identify more legislators  who squirreled taxes in dubious nongovernment organizations. “Whoever will be hit will be hit,” she said. “But what can we do?” More of the same,  please.

“Both the kind and extent of support that a legitimate whistle-blower should be able to expect remains unclear, says an earlier Asian Institute of Management (AIM) study: “Whistle-blowing in the Philippines: Awareness, Attitudes and Structures.” “An explicit policy that will govern whistle-blowing” is needed.

Whistle-blowers who tell the truth make corruption a high-risk activity, Dr. Romulo Miral wrote in the AIM study. But the absence of a legal framework makes personal costs of whistle-blowing very high. (It) is sometimes a “matter of life and death.”

Tell that to the family of Bubby Dacer. The PR man  never made his appointment to brief former President Fidel Ramos on scams involving the government. He and driver Emmanuel Corbito were intercepted by 22  military agents, in Makati. Blindfolded then strangled, their bodies were burned in Indang, Cavite.

Thieves are lionized, not ostracized here. Cash ushers them to first places at table. Those in a position to adopt reforms are often the very persons whistles are blown at. Would Senators Ramon Bong Revilla, Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Gringo Honasan ever scrap the pork barrel?  Ti uwak  uray adigos, nagisit lata, an Ilocano proverb says.  “Though a crow bathes, it remains black.”

They “should take a leave of absence pending formal investigation, Sen. Miriam Defensor urged. Inaction by those involved is buttressed by a culture of impunity. People bolt from those who rock the boat with harsh  truths.

Jerusalem crucified its Whistle-blower.