By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
I will try even just for a moment to set aside candor, temper my instinctive outrage, and muffle what would otherwise be a very raw reaction to this latest development in the flood-control saga. I will attempt, as journalists are trained to do, to give institutions the benefit of the doubt, to assume rational process, legal prudence, and good faith.
That effort lasts exactly up to this point. Here, where I wish the Department of Justice (DOJ) would pause, measure itself, and conclude that it either misinterpreted marching orders from Malacañang or is just plain stupid.
Are we seriously being asked right now to accept that Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) executives Henry Alcantara and Roberto Bernardo are now being primed for something dangerously close to hero status in the biggest flood-control heist in recent memory?
WHAT???
Witness protection — as most laymen understand it, and I am no lawyer — exists to pry open conspiracies by sparing the least guilty. The small fry. The expendable cogs. Not the men who allegedly swam in kickbacks so large they now need forklifts to “restitute” them.
Why did the DOJ even consider this? Alcantara alone has returned P181 million. Add Gerard Opulencia’s P80 million, Bernardo’s P35 million, and contractor Sally Santos’ P20 million, and we’re told P316 million has been “voluntarily” handed back. That is not pocket change. That is not incidental participation. That is prima facie evidence of deep, sustained, and profitable involvement.
Yet Acting Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida would like us to believe these are the least guilty — conveniently discharged from criminal liability “for particular cases,” as long as they sing on cue and don’t recant. It’s a legal magic trick: turn principal actors into prosecution props, and hope the public applauds the illusion.
Is this the prize for returning nearly P200 million? So, this now becomes their ticket to witness protection — and what message does that deliver to the bureaucracy? That if you steal big enough, then when you get caught, you might just be able to afford buying yourself immunity!
Worse, the DOJ’s selectivity raises more questions than answers. Two other DPWH officials were denied state-witness status, but the basis for this decision cannot be disclosed. Translation: trust us. We’ve weighed the scales — behind a curtain.
And looming over all this is Malacañang’s “marching order” to crack down on corruption, even at the cost of economic jitters. Fine. But if this is what accountability looks like — the biggest collectors spared, while the public is promised justice later — then this campaign risks becoming another carefully choreographed performance.
Flood-control projects were supposed to hold back disasters. Instead, they became a cash cow for officials, contractors, and politicians alike. If the DOJ truly wants reform, it should remember this: witnesses don’t cleanse a crime. Convictions do.
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