by Augusto M R Gonzalez III (Toto Gonzalez)
Do you honestly think that Mrs Janet “Jenny” Lim-Napoles will be convicted of all those charges?
IMHO, NO. Because she knows TOO MUCH. She has the frightful potential of being able to bring down the entire Philippine government from President Noynoy Aquino down to the mere barangay functionary.
About 5 years ago, or even more, Jenny Napoles was already the chic-of-the-week byword of property owners and speculators in posh Forbes Park, Makati city, where properties run to the hundreds of millions of pesos. Residents like the Ls, Ms, Qs, Ss, & Ts, who not only had one, but many properties in South Forbes & North Forbes Park, took quiet notice of her: “Who is this Jenny Napoles??? She’s obviously very rich…!!!” At that time, she was one of the first megabuyers — way ahead of Manny Pacquiao — who plonked down unimaginable sums for properties in that impossibly expensive neighborhood. At that time, Php 150 million was, more or less, the going price for +- 2,000 m2. One resident remembered her paying up a whopping Php X00 million in cash for a big residential property.
Jenny Napoles replaced “Don” Pepito Mercado as the newest person-to-know in social Forbes Park circles, where venerable, old family wealth and long lineage were slowly but surely evaporating and giving way to the insurgent megafortunes of nouveaux riches from nowhere. Social Forbes liked attending Pepito Mercado’s parties and enjoying his giveaways, like Mont Blanc “Meisterstuck” fountain pens.
At that time, a Forbes resident gushed: “Everyone knows Jenny Napoles! She’s filthy rich and she’s very nice! She has investments all over the place! She’s a really good businesswoman!”
“She made her big money dealing in arms & ammunition.”
They also knew her military origins and connections: “She’s well-connected with Ping Lacson. Her husband Jimmy & Ping are good friends in the military from way back.”
She was $$$ very rich, and she spread the money around. Friends spoke about her largesse, her generosity, of her magnificent gifts. Major items of Hermes, Chanel, Bulgari, Prada, etc were par for the course. There were parties where the giveaways for all the female guests were expensive signature bags. Business contacts were impressed by her splendid gifts. She did not hesitate to send an ailing friend to the hospital, specialist doctors, treatments, room, and all, everything on her. Neither did she hesitate to have a dead friend embalmed or cremated, interred or inurned, burial plot or niche, everything charged to her. Her largesse to those dear to her was “from womb to tomb.” Among her many traits, Jenny Napoles was a master of the art of giving.
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By all means, the guilty should be charged and penalized accordingly.
But obvious to everyone — except, stupidly enough, to the Philippine government — is that Mrs Janet “Jenny” Lim-Napoles is only a supporting actress in this “pork barrel drama.” In fact, she is only the sacrificial lamb, the “expendable one” who can be punished, because she isn’t “big enough” politically and financially.
She’s not “big enough” politically and financially. Which brings us to the question: Who are the ones BIG ENOUGH politically and financially to elude this “Pork Barrel” witchhunt? I don’t even need to name them, because you all know who they are. Same despicable names, same grotesque faces, same “sinverguenzas.” This whole episode will become the Biblical “This too shall pass…” and they will get away scot-free, yet again. Yet again. Again and again.
But not forever. For there is such a thing as justice in the end. A justice so exact that it will hit right at the point where it hurts the most. It’s called karma. And it’s very real. They will burn in their personal, bespoke, customized hell for sure.
(The Marcoses are supposed to have some USD $ 30 billion deposited in various secret accounts all over the world. Undoubtedly, they have access to some of it, because their princely style of life continues to this day, undiminished. But the fact is they can’t touch most of that purported USD $ 30 billion. Their shyster bankers in Switzerland, Germany, UK, USA, Japan, Singapore, the Cayman islands, etc will simply not allow them to withdraw the precious capital from their banks. No way, over their dead bankers’ bodies. Then what is the use of all those $$$ billions if they can’t have them at their beck and call??? If that’s not “justice,” I don’t know what is.)
I have a different opinion of this fiasco. While I am fully aware of the purported crimes of Mrs Janet “Jenny” Lim-Napoles, I daresay that I admire her, and in a sense, am even thankful to her. It took her Simoun-like genius (remember the very rich jeweler antagonist in Rizal’s 2nd novel “El Filibusterismo”), her derring-do, her sheer guts and balls to pander to the insatiable greed of our politicos and it took her great abilities to unwittingly deal the lethal blows — I cannot say fatal, unfortunately — to the careers of our most corrupt politicos. FINALLY. It took the brilliant, daring misdeeds of Mrs Janet “Jenny” Lim-Napoles to bring the subterranean hoarding activities of the incorruptibly corrupt Filipino politico to the harsh sunlight for all the world to see. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
A lot of people want her dead. Or disappeared without a trace. Specially her former clients and associates, the very ones who benefited, and benefited greatly, from her business genius. For their protection. For good reasons, very good reasons. In the case of Mrs Janet “Jenny” Lim-Napoles’ former clients and associates, there is sadly no honor among thieves. To each his own now. Oddly enough, the Filipino people, or Juan de la Cruz, don’t even figure in that equation.
If only poor Juan de la Cruz knows of all the chicanery that goes on in the highest government circles, the way they parcel things out among themselves with that accepted but errant sense of entitlement: “Tayo tayo lang naman dito…”, he would overthrow this government right now.
The incredible problem with this “Pork Barrel fiasco” is that… like it or not, practically EVERY TOP OFFICIAL IN GOVERNMENT is involved.
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Do you still harbor illusions about our Philippine government? Call me a cynic but I don’t and I never have. It’s never going to change, you know.
The Yellow Dream is so over. I can’t believe it — being a staunch believer as a 19 year-old during EDSA 1986 — but it is.
To paraphrase Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat Sweet & Sour Pork!”
remembrance of things awry 