Excerpts from Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago’s interview

It seems to me that this young man’s behavior is contrary to human nature. He lost in the bidding. The normal reaction is to ask for a re-bidding if you really think that the winning bid was not pursuant to the specifications and if you really think that your own bid would have been better for the country. But instead of making a only a cursory denial, or denunciation of the successful bidder, he is raining automatic gunfire on almost everybody in sight. He is trying to annihilate everybody who has a direct connection with President Arroyo. That is why I say that his behavior is bizarre. And you cannot help but reach the conclusion that he is merely a stool pigeon, he is speaking for a political group that is trying to scandalize the administration.

Who is he speaking for? He is always in the media. The level of political noise he is making is extremely high. You and I know that you won’t get this kind of publicity just making allegations without any proof at all. So this must be a very expensive campaign. My question is: who is funding young this man?

If he is a genuine oppositor, if he is bent on exposing corruption in government, he should have presented his evidence long ago. Instead, he is concentrating on making sensational statements. Where are his witnesses? Or where are the papers that at least implicate these figures? He is a loose cannon but he is not as wild as he seems to be. I think he is merely fronting for a group whose ultimate goal is to create political instability so that President Arroyo will be removed before her term officially ends in 2010, and install another. I have some idea who this “other” is, but again, unlike this person I am criticizing, I’m a trained lawyer. I don’t want to name names unless I have at least some semblance of proof.

[This issue] has to be diligently and conscientiously investigated by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. We cannot all just jump when someone makes a sensational statement. We have to show the public that a Senate Committee investigation is a serious, solemn discharge of duty. Whenever any person makes an allegation, he must be immediately asked to produce at least prima facie, the barest minimum, evidence, to support his claims. Otherwise, all Senate Committee hearings here will be nothing but sensationalist circus.

I want to ask the person why is it that he has never answered the objections or criticisms of his bid, or the justifications presented for the winning bid. In the first place, his corporation is charged with being a mere shell. There is nothing inside. It had an original capital of some Php 300,000.00 according to the certificate of registration issued at the SEC. It had a paid up capital of some Php 300,000 and an authorized capital of Php 5M. And he is trying to pursue half a billion’s worth of public funds. How on earth could you have possibly justified his qualifications? He doesn’t even try to prove his qualifications. He is on a warpath. He is on a bloodbath. We will have to make that young man answer if he is lying to the committee.

He is accusing high public officials of graft and corruption, a misbehavior punishable under the Anti-graft and Corrupt Practices Act. He is making a criminal accusation against them. That certainly, if not accompanied by a modicum of proof, can be libelous. He enjoys no parliamentary immunity… this young man, I am sure, will be facing libel charges or charges of inciting to sedition.

I’m sure that he will be called again, and I hope that by that time, senators will be bent on placing the onus or burden of proof on the accuser, not on the accused. That is the way our judicial or legal system works.

I have advantage over other senators because I have received background information on him. He is not a mere disgruntled bidder. The mere fact that this is so highly publicized and that the angle has always been “who has been corrupt in the Arroyo administration?” … (means that) a lot of money has been spent.

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