Awaiting Advincula’s ‘whodunit’ revelation

PETER J. Advincula is a conman. In fact, he is no ordinary conman and given his litany of criminal cases that should make him an extraordinary recidivist. Looks like he had been in and out of jail and he eluded numerous other complaints against him. That should make him a prime target for law enforcers but at the same time a good catch for politicians with dubious agenda. They can make use of him in exchange for a mantle of protection and on the sideline make a lot of moolah. This brings to mind how Senators Antonio Trillanes and Leila de Lima extended self-confessed killer Edgar Matobato a shroud of protection at the height of Senate’s investigation of the tale of extra-judicial killings (EJKs) carried out by the mythical Davao Death Squad. 

Advincula felt short-changed. For acting as the hooded Bikoy the whistleblower, who regaled the public with episodes of “Ang Totoong Narco List” at the height of the midterm elections, he was promised P500-thousand pesos as talent fee. But the sinister plot did not work.  The black propaganda designed to denigrate President Rodrigo Duterte and his family, including the 14-year-old Veronica, failed miserably in winning votes for the Liberal Party Otso Diretso senatorial slate. In fact, they lost miserably.  Bikoy’s handlers disappeared, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines which accorded him a venue for a press conference. The lawyers' group retracted from its offer to extend him legal assistance. The conman was dropped like a hot potato. He wanted to retaliate. He is determined to open the can of worms which he had, for some time, sealed.

His revelations in that press conference in Camp Crame created an interesting matrix that could make excellent material for a "whodunit" movie.  Advincula casually dropped the name of Fr. Bert Alejo, a  Jesuit who used to reside in a Jesuit house at Ateneo de Davao University.  Known to Davao media as Pareng Bert, he was involved in controversies inside Ateneo campus, the plight and human rights of the Indigenous Peoples or lumads. Only a white band that snuggly tucked his collar is what identifies him as a priest. Almost always he dons a lumad attire.

Some years back Pareng Bert put up “Ehemm”, a crusade, so it portends, to fight corruption. He figured prominently in ousting Customs Collector Anju Castigador, whose collection performance was never equaled to date. Court decisions that favored the official were reversed and only when it reached the Supreme Court that Castigador found relief. A Regional Trial Court judge was later stripped of judgeship and benefits. But that is another story. The last time I saw Pareng Bert, he was frolicking in the snows of Oslo. I didn’t know that he was liaising for whistle blowers-for-hire as Advincula described himself and Matobato. The missing piece on how Trillanes and detained Sen. Leila de Lima plucked Matobato from nowhere in that EJKs Senate probe is finally unearthed.

Advincula casually named Alejo as the person who brought him to Trillanes whom he identified as “Stella” in the Project Sodoma. Bikoy episodes are part of Project Sodoma, a plot that made use of vicious black propaganda to discredit Duterte as an endorser of HnP and PDP-LABAN Senate slate with a wishful goal to win votes for Otso Deretso bets. Ultimately, the plot will proceed to oust President Duterte, install VP Leni Robredo as President and Trillanes as Vice President.

Trillanes admission that he met some priests added spice to the Bickoy’s parlay with the opposition. De Lima’s surprising statement defending Fr. Alejo makes the entire narrative more curious. It also added new twists on the almost forgotten quest on how the self-confessed killer Matobato ended up in the protective custody of Senator Trillanes and De Lima. They fabricated stories about EJKs in the case of Matobato, while Bikoy the fable of “Ang Totoong Narco List”.

Senator-elect Christopher “Bong” Go, who was mentioned in Bikoy’s “Totoong Narcolist”, hinted that he might summon out-going Senator Trillanes to shed light on Advincula’s continuing saga as a whistleblower.

We await with bated breath the presence of Trillanes, de Lima, Fray Alejo, and some priests which both Bikoy and “Stella” admitted were involved in the Project Sodoma caper. Advincula need not use an alias in this "Whodunit" episode that will surely and excitingly unravel the complex plot behind the EJKs probe and “Ang Totoong Narco List”."