By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(Journal Group Link International)

C HICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – Senator Panfilo Lacson’s privilege speech is a “confession of the legal and moral bankruptcy of our political system. But it does not exclude him from any responsibility of the crimes.”

Arnedo S. Valera, the U.S.–based lawyer for torture victim Melissa Roxas and state witness Cezar O. Mancao, II, said because “Lacson is in possession of vital information of specific crimes committed by individuals cited in his ‘expose’,” the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and other special bodies should file appropriate criminal charges.

Atty. Valera, the executive director of the U.S.-based Migrant Heritage Commission, said, “What we will continue to hear from Sen. Lacson’s privilege speech is the affirmation of the litany of institutional corruptions committed by powerful actors in the civilian and the military establishments involving the highest echelon of leadership during the regimes of both former President Estrada and the incumbent President Arroyo.”

As part of his reflection in relation to the upcoming national elections, Mr. Valera said that the “Filipino nation should be united in rejecting Presidential candidates who do not want to address and commit themselves in solving the following fundamental issues that have been considered cyclical problems of Philippine society.  We need to ask these specific questions to all the presidentiables:

1.    Who is the candidate who will sincerely and vigorously investigate, arrest those when probable cause have been established and put to jail those engage or have engaged in graft and corruption?

2.    Who is the candidate who will fully investigate and prosecute those committing and have committed systematic and gross human rights violations in our country that has surpassed even those of the Marcos dictatorship? And who is the candidate who can with all courage and honesty provide an environmental explanation of the causes of increasing and systematic human rights violations in our country and concretely propose a solution to end human rights violations in the Philippines?

3.    Who is the candidate who can revitalize the Philippine economy with specific economic policies that will address the issues of mass poverty, dependence on overseas remittances for the nation’s economic survival? And who will adopt and institute economic policies where the paramount consideration is to build an economy that is domestically strong and where basic needs of its people are met and where one’s economy is not controlled by foreign companies or entities? And

4.    Who is the candidate who will stand and assert the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our nation so that mutual respect can always be demanded even against powerful nations?

Mr. Valera said that who ever can provide specific answers and not mere lip service to these fundamental questions deserve to lead the nation. “We need to hear from these presidentiables at this critical time in our history their political platform and their commitment that they will have the political will to address these issues no matter who is involved. Otherwise, the incoming Presidential elections will simply be another political circus, one of the favorite past time of Filipinos.”

Mr. Valera said that the Filipino nation, including the more than eight million overseas workers all over the world, who by necessity, left their beloved country to seek greener pastures for their families "remain hopeful that someday real changes will happen and that our nation will not continue to be a slave of corruption and where the weak and the oppressed remains without hope.

“The real power to institute genuine change is in the hands of our people and not with the presidentiables,” Mr. Valera concluded. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net) # # #