Joc Joc faces senators today…

BY DENNIS GADIL

IT’S all systems go for the face-off between senators and former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante as the Senate Blue Ribbon committee opens today its new probe on the P728-million fertilizer fund scam.

Bolante is expected to arrive at the Senate premises before 9:30 a.m. accompanied by Senate security personnel. He will be coming from the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City.

This early, senators are warning Bolante not to invoke his right against self-incrimination indiscriminately.

"Of course, we recognize his constitutional right (against self-incrimination) but he can only invoke this right after every question," minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said.

Pimentel said Bolante would still need to justify why his answers to a particular question would tend to incriminate him.

Pimentel said he expects today’s hearing to be protracted, given the number of senators who wish to grill Bolante as well as the anticipated stalling and evasion on the part of the man tagged by the Senate in 2005 as the master architect of the illegal fund diversion to the campaign kitty of President Arroyo for the 2004 elections.

"That’s why I suggested wala munang ibang testigo, siya lang muna (because) it can be a protracted session," Pimentel said.

Bolante would appear before some of the senators who probed the scam in the 13th Congress particularly Jinggoy Estrada and Panfilo Lacson.

Estrada and Lacson have vigorously pursued the probe and pressed for the arrest of Bolante after he had snubbed their summons.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said she is fearful Bolante would invoke his right against self-incrimination, considering he is a respondent in the case before the Ombudsman.

Santiago said Bolante can’t say much to the Senate panel members because of the pending case with the Ombudsman.

Majority leader Francis Pangilinan appealed to Bolante to come to the Senate "with a clean heart."

"Bolante should redeem whatever’s left of his pride by facing the Senate and telling all," Pangilinan said.

Law professor Harry Roque Jr. said senators must consider the more than P1 billion in taxpayers’ money involved in the fertilizer fund mess than "humanitarian" concerns about Bolante.

"Umaasa ang taumbayan na pagkatapos ng tatlong taon ng pag-aantay, sisipot si Bolante sa Senado upang malaman natin ang katotohanan sa fertilizer scam," Roque, co-convenor of civil society group Concerned Citizens Movement, said.

Bolante fled to the United States in July 2006 at the height of the Senate probe on the fertilizer fund mess.

He was arrested in the United States and denied asylum. He was deported last October 28 but upon arrival complained of chest pains and had to be taken to St. Luke’s Medical Center.

Roque reminded the senators that while Bolante is entitled to invoke his right against self-incrimination, legal precedents allow senators to decide whether such invocations are proper.

"Pag decision ng Senado di tama ang (pag-invoke ng) right to self-incrimination, ikukulong siya," he said