Revilla’s bid ‘delusional’

Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. can run for the presidency all he wants, but he should not expect an easy victory, lawmakers said yesterday.

Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello said Revilla was “delusional” in talking about running for Malacañang from jail in 2016. But desperate people are “prone to delusions,” he added.

“The cold reality that Filipinos are not crazy enough to elect a plunderer to office in order to plunder them some more will sink in in a few more days, once the circus surrounding his arrest is gone,” Bello said.

Revilla was arrested Friday on plunder charges over the P10-billion pork barrel scam. He was clamped in jail at the Philippine National Police custodial center in Camp Crame, Quezon City, and the antigraft court Sandiganbayan set his arraignment for June 26.

He was the first high-profile politician to be arrested in the pork barrel scam allegedly masterminded by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.

For Edre Olalia of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, Revilla’s talking about running for Malacañang in 2016 seemed to be a ploy to “gain sympathy and write another amazing story of political rehabilitation in the near future.”

“But it should not in any way legally affect the merits or demerits of the plunder case. The tragedy of our society is we look away when blatant fouls are committed against us,” Olalia said in a text message.

He also said that while anyone qualified could run, the important question is their moral fitness and whether their platform is for the greater good of the greater majority of the poor and the powerless.

A popular action movie hero who was elected to the Senate in 2004, Revilla, 47, had been going around impoverished communities in Cavite and Metro Manila days before his arrest, defending himself and talking about running for president in 2016.

He kept talking about running as he left his home in Bacoor town, Cavite province, on Friday morning to surrender to the Sandiganbayan, saying he would run even from behind bars “if there’s a public clamor for it.”

On Saturday a political ally of Revilla’s said the public should be wary of attempts to demonize him through various channels, as only the court can truly say whether Revilla is guilty of plundering the people’s money.

Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, president of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), said in a statement that Revilla’s detention was not a reflection of his guilt. Until the court hands down a ruling, nobody can say Revilla has committed plunder, he said.

Romualdez said news releases and commentaries may soon appear to try to make Revilla appear guilty.

“Whoever tries to condition or influence the public mind of the senator’s guilt in any manner whatsoever is the one who’s trying to cover up something unlawful and immoral,” he added.

Should Revilla proceed with his plan to run for president, he is expected to run under the banner of Lakas-CMD, which Romualdez earlier said intended to play a major role in the 2016 elections.

Not barrier to election

In March, Romualdez said he was unfazed by the threat of plunder charges being brought against Revilla, as this did not bar anybody from being elected to public office.

Romualdez cited the case of former President Joseph Estrada, who was convicted of plunder after being ousted from Malacañang in 2001, placed second after making another run for the presidency in 2010, and was elected mayor of Manila in 2013.

Revilla was the top vote-getter in the 2010 senatorial race, polling more than 19 million votes.

Romualdez also said Lakas-CMD remained behind Revilla, but would not intervene his trial.

Instead, the party would do its own probe of the pork barrel scandal and would expect administration allies to be made subject to a similar investigation, he added.

Expecting to be arrested this week are Senators Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile, also accused of plunder for allegedly pocketing tens of millions of pesos in kickbacks from phantom rural-development projects proposed by Napoles through bogus foundations in repeated raids on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) over a period of 10 years.

Like Revilla, Estrada and Enrile insist they are innocent, and say they are ready to be jailed.

Merits of the case

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said Revilla’s campaign for the presidency should have no effect on his legal case, which should be judged based on its merits.

“It is his right to run for any public office during the pendency of his case. It should not impact on his trial, which should be resolved on the merits,” Colmenares said.

But Colmenares said that even with the arrest of politicians and officials implicated in the pork barrel scam, the main issue was the continued existence of pork barrel in the current budget, which could be seen in various lump-sum items.

What is worse, he said, is that allies of the President who have also been implicated in the pork barrel scam remain unscathed by any investigation.

Revilla turned himself in at the Sandiganbayan on Friday amid movie-like fanfare after the court ordered him arrested on Thursday.

He denies involvement in the large-scale diversion of public funds to ghost projects and claims he is being persecuted by the Aquino administration.

Meanwhile, the Akbayan party-list said in a statement that Revilla and the other senators implicated in the pork barrel scam should not be enjoying newly constructed, “condominium-like” detention cells. They should be treated like ordinary respondents and should be held in regular cells, it said.

“The public must see that the brand of justice applied by the government to ordinary people is the same one enforced on the high and mighty,” Bello said in the statement.

Akbayan also urged the administration to apply the same resoluteness and process of accountability on administration allies who may be linked to the scandal. With a report from TJ Burgonio

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