The Yellow Ribbon Committee

THE Blue Ribbon Committee has become a virtual Yellow Ribbon Committee. It took us for a ride around the globe. It purports to do investigation in aid of legislation but the truth, as it is turning out, is that it has become a veritable investigation for re-election. This is a worn-out phrase but still relevant especially with the current conduct of the probe. Just look at the grand inquisitors and you know the reason why.  To the man…and woman…they are all re-electionists.

I have opted to shun the sound and fury from the Senate hall but the latest jig of BRC Chairman Dick Gordon really brought the inquisition to childish irrelevance. Imagine, it all started with an allegation of overpriced personal protective equipment. The Commission on Audit says there was none. They then questioned the officials of the supplier why they drive expensive cars and why they made donations.   

Lately, they took note of the expiry dates of face shields. They sent Pharmally executive to jail and put pressure on another lady executive, Ms. Kryzle Grace Mago, who, confronted with a hooded witness brought into the hearing by Riza Honteveros, “confessed” they hoodwinked the government. Mago went missing after that but later mustered enough courage to appear in the Lower House hearing into the same allegations. She totally retracted her statement before the Senate after being given assurance of protection. 

Am certain that her statements in both houses were under oath but I cannot be certain which one is true. At least in the Lower House, she was given uninterrupted time to explain in detail why some items which were damaged were replaced and how dates got mixed up.  She was not given that opportunity in the grand inquisition in the Yellow Ribbon Committee. 

And then comes the latest of Gordon’s razzmatazz. He made a lot of fuss on Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s recent side trip to a Makati City mall. Digong was accompanied by Bong Go right after the Senator filed his certificate of candidacy for Vice President. Obviously, Dick tailed Duterte who wanted to buy those homemade cookies and later passed by several stores, and among them watch shops. 

Dick was so deliriously excited he ejaculated a mouthful of diatribes accusing Duterte of shopping expensive watches at the height of the crisis. My gosh, this pandemic could really have a serious effect on everybody including those supposed to be doyens in the Senate. 

Why cannot the Executive and Legislative Departments put their acts together? While Health Sec. Francisco Duque is decidedly among the weakest link in the Duterte Cabinet,  why don’t you just leave him and the rest of the health officials alone so they can attend to their duty in this time of national emergency? Or, as the President had said, why don’t they just file a case against Pharmally?

President Duterte, I think, forgot that this investigation of the Yellow Ribbon Committee is, for all intent and purposes, in aid of election.