[Edgewise] Tell it to the marines

A lawyer neighbor (who shall remain unnamed) excitedly told me he helped file a blockbuster affidavit that could bring down the Marcos administration and derail both the impending impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte and the trial of Tatay Digong at the International Criminal Court.

“We accuse President Bongbong Marcos, Senate President Tito Sotto, ex-speaker Martin Romualdez, ex-senator Antonio Trillanes, Representative Leila De Lima, and more than 30 current and former government officials of receiving a whopping 805 billion pesos in kickbacks from anomalous flood control projects,” he bragged.

Oh, c’mon, P805 billion? Tell it to the marines.

“I did,” he beamed. “Eighteen of them, to be exact, signed the joint affidavit I drafted stating that they counted and packed the cash — or that the stash came already packed in suitcases, as the case may be — and personally delivered the loot. They were bagmen and security escorts of congressman Zaldy Co, the money’s source who’s now hiding in Portugal.”

So, the joint affidavit means they were always together delivering money — each time, all the time? You’re pulling my leg. How many vans did that take? Your friend Mike Defensor’s wife must have a fleet of them. 

“No naman, don’t be so simple-minded. And for the record, Mike Defensor is not involved at all. Just his wife’s van.”

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But why include Sotto, De Lima and Trillanes? You’re telling me they delivered the money to Sotto when he wasn’t even a senator at the time, De Lima while she was still in prison on Duterte’s trumped-up charges or before she was even in Congress? I’ll believe that when pigs fly.

“Who said anything about ex-PNP cops? I said ex-marines. Fine. I’ll scratch De Lima from the list. Happy now? It was just a slip of the pen. But Trillanes needed millions to bribe the ICC. That’s why that foreign court is treating Tatay Digong so badly.”

Still, P805 billion is such an unbelievably big amount of kickback. It’s almost twice the defense budget. In fact, it’s 60% of education’s, and 15% of all the cash in circulation in the Philippines. You mean to tell me Zaldy Co & Co. cleaned out the central bank? Go pull my other leg.

“Well, it’s big-time graft and corruption we’re talking about here,” he shrugged.

Just blowing smoke

So, the ex-marines packed the 805 billion pesos in 13,000 suitcases — the entire inventory of luggage in SM, Landmark, Greenhills, Divisoria? If they counted half a million pesos a day, it would’ve taken them over four years nonstop to finish. The haul would weigh 800 metric tons! 

“What can I say? They were really fast and physically fit ex-marines, you know. Always outnumbered, never out — something, something.”

Never outfought. That’s from the old Philippine Constabulary, silly, not the marines. Never outbought, maybe. Besides, eight of them were never assigned to Zaldy Co, some were not marines or were dishonorably discharged, and six are even facing murder raps. How credible does that make them? You better get your story straight, my friend.

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“Hey, wait a minute. My clients are patriotic whistleblowers who are willing to testify against wrongdoers for the good of the country. Why are you treating them like they’re the accused?”

Looks like they’re just blowing smoke. This all seems like a badly written script. Like an old movie where Joseph Estrada and the kontrabida have a fistfight that starts in the morning, stumbles up and down two hills, and ends in the evening.

“Don’t be so dramatic. I’m a topnotch lawyer not a screenwriter. Go fly a kite.”

Speaking of flying, how reliable can your ex-marines be? One said he flew with Zaldy Co to deliver money to President Marcos. But there’s no record of any such flight. That marine can’t even say what town in Ilocos President Bongbong’s residence is located.

“If you don’t believe us you can go jump in a lake!” he snarled.

A lake, my friend, is exactly where you and your 18 ex-marines will end up, like missing sabungeros, when your claim sinks and you all pose the risk of exposing your secret handlers.

“Oh, go take a hike.” – Rappler.com

Rene Ciria Cruz is an editor at positivelyfilipino.com. He edited the book A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP), (UP Press), and was Inquirer.net’s US Bureau Chief 2013-2023. He has written for the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, Pacific News Service, and California Lawyer Magazine.