My late mom would occasionally turned philosophical when I was a young boy. In Kapampangan, she would say” alang mayumong e saslam”. Nothing sweet stays sweet. She would utter those hand-me-down adage, as fast as lightning after a thunder,, everytime a good, chummy relationship turned sour or sweet-sour. Or,literally sugar, when we had plenty of that basic stuff way back then, as basic as rice and-sugar (inuyat or muscavado) for breakfast for those living a threadbare existence.
Certainly, nothing about government recurrent namby-pamby or unbridled decay while the poor were busy trying to make a living, or what passed for existential dignity. Ganito sila noon, ganito pa rin sila ngayon. The more things change, said the French philosopher Karr, the more things stay the same.
And now, this sugar importation mess, reluctantly swallowed by the nation like a bitter-sweet pill, as in higher price of the commodity,making truth the first, or final, casualty. Not even the best people in the Senate who could see and smell truth or lie when they saw or smelled one, couldn’t agree. There’s nothing like success or subterfuge with power and politics. O what a tangled web we weave, warned Sir Walter Scott, when at first we practice to deceive.
There’s history to that, and a rewriting or revision of what happened in the past is aggressively going on. Happy days were here again, wrote the polemical satirist William Buckley Jr. in his book with same title. They have six years to rewrite history which, thanks to former Senator/Eat Bulaga host Tito Sen,said it is impossible to do.
Who was deceitful?, inquired the honorable Senators. Was it Palace officials, including no less than the boss? Was it the top brass in the government’s sugar agency? Was it the sugar traders?
Let’s hear the elders first. Of course, majority rules, even if Henry Ibsen wrote so emphatically long time ago in his book “Enemy of the People” that the majority is now always right. Per the ascendant head of the Blue Ribbon Committee, Sen. Francis Tolentino , some heads in the sugar agency, namely Serafica Sebastian et al , have to roll.
Sorry to disappoint the Shylocks who indignantly wanted their pound of flesh. The two have already resigned, obviously out of delicadeza, not because they have been found not telling the truth. It’s not fair, the Senate minority cried. They’re blameless.
And here’s what the minority has to say, after everything—maybe not all—has been said and done. 1) There’s sugar shortage. Those frenzy raid left and right of warehouses filled with sacks of sugar up to the roof appeared part of what former Clark executive Rufo Colayco described in his encounter with former President Erap Estrada as presidential zarzuela. Atong Ang is still around and winning, and he can confirm Colayco’s impression.
2) Executive Secretary Vic Rodrigues is not entirely blameless. Pimentel puts it euphemistically: he had his shortcomings. May be it’s memory problem, which he invoked after his recollection of the truth was challenged no less by the sugar executives he was charging with dishonorable, disrespectful action. Memory loss or lapse, to my knowledge, is no crime. You learn that in law school.
3) The sugar agency people who were being boisterously crucified , with emphasis on noisier, were merely being used as escape goats. (Napoleon had earlier warned: morality is on the side of the heavier artillery). You have 31 million votes , you have the right to be noisier. They were acting in good faith. They were transparent. More importantly, there were no badges of shenanigans on their shoulders.
4. There’s the political tyranny of the majority. More straightforwardly, there’s no legal basis for the recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Committee headed by Tolentino, to have the sugar agency top brass to be prosecuted.
Times like this, we miss former senator Dick Gordon, he whose pouch, according to the unlamented predecessor of Marcos Jr, who lately dismissed his popular tag as the son of a dictator as wrong, the result of his brain cascading down his belly. He called spade a space in the forgotten Pharmally scam that, on the basis of a Blue Ribbon Committee findings, established that billions were stolen from government funds in the midst of a pandemic. The culprits are still on the lam.
There’s hope against hope. Justice may take a long route, even if justice delayed is real justice denied. The International Criminal Court will resume its probe on alleged crime against humanity in the course of the so-called war on drug. The great bad Al Capone was cornered for all his crimes when the law enforcers pinned him for not paying his income tax. God sees the truth, says Tolstoy, but waits.
Scott was on the money. While the alleged illegal import order for 300,000 metric tons of sugar was being investigated, the President himself with a slew of sugar traders/planters singing hosanna as a choir behind him, approved the importation of 150,000 metric tons, pronto. In the meantime, no cases of hoarding, smuggling or what-not have been filed yet against the owners of raided warehouses.
So, where’s the beef?
A few days ago, President Marcos was beaming good news after two state visits to Singapore and Indonesia. He has come back with huge investment pledges from those countries’ investors amounting to P804 billion. No peanuts and no Mary Jane. In light of the sugar mess and other issues about truths, lies and credibility, there is a need to pause.
Pimentel has a saintly advice in relation to the Palace’ “sin” on the sugar importation scandal.
“Let’s leave them to their consciences”. Which says a lot, really.
