At the “Kapihan sa Rembrandt” this morning, Jan. 29, 2010 (Manila time), Senate Minority Floor Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr., told the following tidbits about current events:

1.0           Senator Enrile’s latest tirade that by innuendo practically charges Manny Villar with bribery is unfair, uncalled for, and implausible.

1.1           The Enrile innuendo is unfair and uncalled for because if he found the conversation he allegedly had with Manny Villar criminal or unethical, why did he not include it in the charges the majority had concocted against the latter? Why did he not include it or even allude to it in his sponsorship speech of the flawed report of the committee of the whole that had the earmarks of a kangaroo court?

1.2           It is implausible because in law, evidence to be believed must not only be credible in itself but must also proceed from a credible mouth.

1.3           In this instance, I am sorry to say, that Senator Enrile’s innuendo is far from credible. He is neither a neutral judge nor a credible witness.

1.4           His bias as judge in the SCOW has been revealed in the way he refused to fully hear our arguments when we initially participated in the SCOW investigation. Thus, the opposition bloc no longer attended the investigation.

1.5           Moreover, Senator Enrile’s credibility as a witness is tainted by past misstatements. For example, he admitted that his car was staged ambushed in 1972 to lay the basis for the declaration of martial law.

1.6           He also stated – after he decided to abandon the Marcos martial-law regime – that in his province, they cheated Cory Aquino of, I remember the numbers correctly, some 300,000 votes.

1.7           How then can anyone believe that innuendo from the mouth of a person who had compromised the truth publicly a number of times in the past for his own purposes?

1.8           I liken the SCOW to a kangaroo court because it used rules that did not fit the committee; it had for its principal judges, the political rivals of Manny Villar for the presidency.

1.9           Also because even their own witnesses, Ms. Dublon, Ms. Bacud, and Mr. Lala had said there were no illegal insertions, no overprice, and no diversion in the C5 road controversy.

2.0           The crash of that Nomad plane in Cotabato City yesterday demonstrates the urgent need to put money in modernizing our air force.

2.1           I remember that it was a Nomad Plane on which soldiers who arrested me in Cagayan de Oro flew me to Cebu for incarceration in 1983, I think it was, on false charges of rebellion, insurrection and what not.

2.2           That is past. What is needed now is the political will of the government not to jeopardize the lives of our air force pilots and soldiers of the armed forces by allowing junk air force planes to fly as if these are flight worthy. # # #