The announcement on Christmas Day by President Gloria Arroyo that suspended Secretary of Justice Hernando Perez would remain on leave past Dec. 27 was unfortunate. It seems that the president has been listening to those in her administration who want to see the back of Perez.
Perez went on a one-month leave from his post on Nov. 27 after an allegation made by disgraced Rep. Mark Jimenez, accusing Perez of having extorted $2 million out of him. Jimenez claims that the money was deposited in a Hong Kong bank account for Perez. It later turned out that the account in Hong Kong belonged to businessman Ernest Escaler. In order to safeguard the reputation of the Arroyo administration, Perez agreed to step down temporarily until the storm passed.
Already rumors are flying that President Arroyo has offered the justice portfolio to Vice President Teofisto Guingona. Hopefully he will strongly reject the offer and insist that Perez stay on. It is too bad that the president has suddenly become beholden to opinion polls and popularity ratings. This obsession with ratings is making her put down the best members of her cabinet such as Perez and Guingona, and have them replaced by bizarre dinosaurs.
Let us not forget that it was the legal mind of Perez and his team of lawyers at the Department of Justice who built the impeachment case against former President Joseph Estrada. At every twist and turn in the legal battle between Estrada’s army of highly paid lawyers and the government, Perez was always one step ahead, putting forth the government’s case with clarity and backed with facts.
Perez’s biography on the Office of the President’s website (http://www.op.gov.ph/profiles_hernandoperez.asp) describes him as: “a cut above the rest. He epitomizes the alternative politician: prudent, unwavering, yet soft-spoken and calm. He was consistently adjudged one of the Ten Outstanding Congressmen for nine straight years.”
****
Jimenez’s martyr act is tiring!
As I write this Rep. Mark Jimenez is whining live on TV Patrol on Dec. 26th that his departure from the Philippines to face fraud and tax evasion charges in the United States is “oppressive” because he is being forced to leave on the US airline Continental Airlines instead of his preferred Philippine Airlines.
The fact that he is being extradited to the US, after the US Department of Justice officially asked the Philippines to deport him, seems to have escaped Jimenez.
Wearing a fancy barong as he speaks from his mansion in Forbes Park, Makati (why he doesn’t live in Manila itself, in the sixth district that he represents in Congress is mystifying), he whines about missing his upcoming birthday with his family as he’ll be locked up in a Florida jail waiting to make bail.
Jimenez also claims that some people in power want to see him leave the Philippines handcuffed and humiliated, that image flashed across TV screens and newspaper front pages in the Philippines.
The Philippine and US governments have agreed that Jimenez would leave Manila without handcuffs and that he would be accorded the courtesy that a congressman deserves. Why Jimenez should doubt this is unclear. Perhaps a guilty conscience is making him feel paranoid?
His deportation is garnering excessive media attention, with TV reporters stooping as low as to interview his domestic staff who praise him as a generous and kind boss as they clean up Jimenez’s huge dining table. Jimenez is craftily playing to the gallery, using the media to make the case that he’s a good guy after all.
Jimenez’s son has declared that his father will be back in the Philippines by the first week of January, after posting bail in the United States. Let’s see what happens next.
****
Comments or questions? Email the author at: [email protected] or [email protected].
****
Visit the author’s website at http://www.manilamoods.com to read past columns.
Arab News Opinion 27 December 2002
