MANILA: A Philippine senator who rose to fame as an action movie hero was arrested yesterday, becoming the first politician detained over a massive corruption scandal allegedly involving dozens of lawmakers.
Ramon “Bong” Revilla surrendered following an emotional saga that played out for weeks on national television and highlighted some of the most chaotic elements of the Philippines’ helter-skelter brand of democracy.
“I will go to jail with my head held high, and I will come out with my head held high,” Revilla, 47, told reporters shortly after attending a mass with his family, his final made-for-TV showpiece before giving himself up.
Revilla then travelled in a luxury sedan, speaking constantly to television news anchors on the phone, to an anti-graft court for his official surrender on a charge of plunder.
Revilla is one of three senators to have so far been indicted for their alleged roles in a scam in which lawmakers are accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars allotted for development projects.
An enduring feature of the Philippines’ tumultuous democracy has been brazen corruption by politicians, a major reason for deep poverty in the Southeast Asian nation of 100 million people.
But the magnitude and number of politicians involved in the so-called Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam has shocked even the most graft-weary Filipino, triggering a giant anti-corruption rally in Manila last year.
The Supreme Court also reacted by outlawing the PDAF funding mechanism that was allegedly misused, in which lawmakers were given funds with little oversight to spend on development projects of their choice.
President Benigno Aquino, elected in 2010 on an anti-graft platform, has sought to take advantage of the events by portraying the probes into politicians as an integral part of his quest to stamp out corruption.
“This is a milestone,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said.
“We’re accomplishing what some people said was a near impossible task: to have these big personalities who are perceived as untouchable finally prosecuted.”
But Aquino’s critics have accused him of directing authorities’ efforts on his opponents, even though key allies have also been implicated. Revilla and the other two senators indicted are members of the opposition.
One of the others indicted is Juan Ponce Enrile, a 90-year-old politician famous for his cunning who was defence minister during Ferdinand Marcos’s martial law regime three decades ago.
The other is Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, the son of former president Joseph Estrada who was toppled in a 2001 popular uprising triggered by his plundering of government coffers.
Like every politician implicated in the scam, all three senators have protested their innocence.
AFP
