The fertilizer fund scam caused havoc in the Senate three years ago, as an investigation by the Blue Ribbon Committee revealed that a P728 million fund reserved for the use of poor farmers was instead diverted to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's 2004 campaign kitty. The issue remains unresolved, as investigators scramble to wring answers from persons implicated in the case.

One key official, former Department of Agriculture (DA) undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante, was said to have been responsible for the mismanagement of the fertilizer fund. When the Senate called for him to testify, Bolante suddenly left for the United States on December 11, 2005, prompting talk that he was avoiding questioning on his involvement in the scam.

The Senate immediately issued an arrest warrant for Bolante. The Blue Ribbon Committee and the Committee on Agriculture and Food also recommended “the filing of plunder charges” against him, as well as four other “top DA officials” including “former secretary Luis Lorenzo, former undersecretary Ibarra Poliquit (now vice president of the Government Service Insurance System), Undersecretary Belinda Gonzales, and Assistant Secretary Jose Felix Montes,” the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism reported in 2006.

Bolante's struggle to remain in the US was long and hard. His lawyer Antonio Zulueta petitioned the Supreme Court on October 28 to declare the warrant issued by the Senate in 2005 to be “illegal and unconstitutional.” However, the Senate took steps to ensure that they would be able to take Bolante in hand upon his return: the Blue Ribbon Committee prepared a new subpoena for Bolante to appear at a public inquiry, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) reported on October 22.

Bolante was arrested on July 7, 2006 “at the Los Angeles International Airport while trying to enter the US with a visa he did not know had been revoked by the [American] Embassy in Manila,” the Philippine Star said. He then appealed for asylum in America, but was denied. The US Board of Immigration ordered his deportation.

In a statement released upon his return to the country on October 28, Bolante denied that he deliberately fled Senate questioning, and asserted that he “had made prior commitments abroad which were set long before the scheduled hearings.” He even “committed through counsel, in writing, to appear before the Senate during the last week of January 2006,” he said.

Bolante is currently confined at St. Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City , where he was rushed upon landing due to his “failing health,” GMA News reported.

Militant groups are convinced his illness is “fake,” the Philippine Star said. Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas asserted that Senators “should press Bolante to 'start facing the music of his misdeeds' and answer issues surrounding the...fertilizer fund scam” as medical tests he underwent “did not indicate any serious illness.”

“All we want is the truth, and we want it now. We have waited for so long and we will not allow it to be delayed further. Besides, when he was in the US, he has no complaints but when he got here it is as if [he is] going to die. The doctors in [St. Luke’s Medical Center] even said that he is not in any danger...Just tell the truth and account for what you have done, then your conscience will be free. That is our advice to Joc-joc. If he does not follow it, then his moral sickness will just get worse,” the Philippine Star quoted KMP national council member and KMP-Bikol chairman Feliz Paz.

Opposition and pro-administration senators are now battling on whether to restart probes into the fertilizer fund scam, GMA News said. Meanwhile, there are once again calls for Arroyo to “answer allegations of her involvement in the scam.”

On November 4, former solicitor general Frank Chavez told the PDI, “While [Arroyo] may be immune from suit, she is not immune from an investigation into her involvement in the controversy.”

Chavez is also “set to send orders to congressmen and local officials involved in the scam to submit a counter affidavit explaining why they should not be charged with graft,” PDI said. Chavez was the one who “filed the original suit on the scam before the office of the Ombudsman in 2004.” 

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is scheduled to convene on the fertilizer fund scam next week.

Photo: “Manure” by sono salvo (Caption: Display seemingly unchanged since the 50s or 60s, American Museum of Natural History, New York.), taken from Flickr.com. Licensed under Creative Commons license number BY-NC-SA-2.0-DEED.EN.
Video: “QTV: Probe on fertilizer scam depends on Bolante,” courtesy of GMA News.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."