One cannot help but wonder if any of the witnesses who testify in the Senate hearings on the alleged bribery-extortion in the Bureau of Immigration actually take the oaths they swear to tell the truth any seriously.
During committee hearings in Congress, witnesses typically take an oath before the committee chairman, an oath similar to the one used in a court of law, subject to prosecution if they don’t tell the truth. If a witness is sworn in and lies to a congressional committee, he or she may be prosecuted for perjury.
But if all the witnesses who have so far testified in the three hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on the bribery-extortion scandal are telling the truth, then no one actually did anything wrong.
Not Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II, who practically allowed former policeman turned self-professed gambling advocate Wally Sombero to try to influence him to be the “godfather” of Chinese gambling tycoon Jack Lam in the Duterte administration, and let Sombero off without so much as a slap on the wrist.
Not Aguirre’s subordinates and fraternity brothers, former Immigration Deputy Commissioners Michael Robles and Al Argosino, who both vehemently kept denying they had extorted at least P50 million for the release of some 1,300 Chinese nationals illegally working in the Lam-owned Fontana Leisure Parks and Casino in Clark, Pampanga, and Fort Ilocandia in Laoag. Although they admitted to accepting the money and keeping it for more than two weeks, or until they were exposed, they claimed to have nothing but good intentions. They only wished to prove that corruption exists in the immigration bureau, they said. In last Thursday’s hearing, they told Sen. Richard J. Gordon, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chairman, that they met with Sombero only to help facilitate the release of the Chinese nationals when, all of a sudden, the money was laid out before them.
Sombero says he, too, was only trying to help Lam’s group get the arrested Chinese out of detention, in his capacity as founder of a certain Asian Gaming Service Provider Association Inc. or Agspa. He refused to call the P50 million he gave to Argosino and Robles a bribe, preferring the word “payoff”, as if it makes any difference.
Sombero claimed he was trying to entrap Argosino and Robles, who, in turn, claimed they were also trying to entrap Sombero. Whose sting operation was successful depends on who you want to believe.
As if their tales were not sordid and twisted enough, Lam’s group, which gave the money—P60 million as of the last count—to Sombero to give to Argosino and Robles, includes a certain Charlie “Atong” Ang.
Ang, who was coaccused in the plunder case against former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada and who was sentenced to six years in prison on the charge of corruption of a public official after entering a plea bargaining agreement, naturally did not want to call the P60 million they shelled out a bribe either. He said the money was intended to bail out the arrested Chinese. But why give it to Sombero to give to Argosino and Robles, when cash bail is usually posted in the courthouse? Surely a former felon like Ang would know that.
Three hearings and all we have heard so far are circuitous and conflicting testimonies, none of which are very convincing to be the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
It is easy to tell the truth but not so easy to hide it. The truth is simple and direct. It doesn’t need a painstakingly crafted explanation. When somebody gives us a long-winded explanation or a complicated story about why something happened or did not happen, we usually wonder if there’s a simpler explanation not being said or if what is being said is altogether false. When somebody can’t convey the truth plain and simple, searches for words, or avoids giving direct answers, we think they’re not being truthful.
Perhaps, it’s time for the Senate to start filing perjury charges.