Senator Miriam Defensor- Santiago. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – There is too much greed in Congress that Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago wishes her colleagues would just drink poison or be sent to jail.
Santiago lamented that there is now “too much corruption” in the country and how congressmen and senators have become so greedy.
“Somobra na talaga ang pagkaganid ng ating mga senador at congressmen. Dapat na talagang ikulong sila o kaya painumin sila ng hemlock,” she said in a television interview on Thursday.
(The greed of legislators knows no bounds. They should be incarcerated or forced to drink hemlock.)
Hemlock, according to online encyclopedia “Wikipedia,” is the poison drank by Greek philosopher Socrates when he was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth and impiety.
For weeks now, Congress is being hounded by controversies over the alleged misuse of lawmakers’ priority development assistance fund (PDAF) also known as “pork barrel” funds .
In fact, some senators and congressmen were charged at the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly funnelling their PDAF to fake non-government organizations of Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind in the P10-billion “pork barrel” scam.
Just last week, Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada exposed that senators who voted to impeach then Chief Justice Renato Corona were given P50 million “incentive” each. Malacañang later confirmed that the fund came from the government’s savings through the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
And if there are people who would be charged for these fund releases, then Santiago said those who requested or accepted the money should also be charged in court.
“Dapat ang lahat ng mga kasabwat— nanghingi o tumanggap ay dapat i-sue rin for plunder kasi P50 million ang threshold amount sa plunder,” she said.
(The accomplices – those who asked or accepted should also be sued for plunder because P50 million is the threshold amount for plunder.)
If that happens, she said, the country would then have a “failed” Congress.