Victim speaks up on shakedown
Posted on June 24, 2007 - Filed Under Governance
In October last year, the Manila Times ran an editorial deploring what appeared to be the abrupt dismissal of then Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban.
As things have turned out in the past week, however, it was Panganiban himself who decided to give up his ad interim Cabinet position . . . rather than succumb to the demands of eight congressmen-members of the powerful Commission on Appointments that he ‘produce’ millions of pesos in cash in order to navigate the CA confirmation process successfully. In addition to the alleged cash bribe solicitation, Panganiban also disclosed that he was being required to distribute around P80 million in DA projects to the same congressmen’s districts.
The former acting secretary’s belated revelation was clearly triggered by last week’s accusation by outgoing Cong. Herminio Teves that his son, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, was a target of extortion attempts by CA members . . . all of whom are supposedly members of the outgoing Congress. The senior Teves charged that he was asked to come up with P5 million on his son’s behalf. He also said his congressmen-colleagues demanded appointments to top BIR and Customs positions for their relatives and friends. Sec. Teves’ confirmation was eventually bypassed.
Speaker Jose de Venecia is poised to conduct a probe and it should pursue some intriguing clues provided by Cong. Teves: “A congressman who ran for senator but lost and third-termers whose wives ran for their congressional seats but also lost”.
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