By CPP Information Bureau
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today declared Benigno Aquino III as “The Lord of Thieves,” as a riposte to Aquino’s declaration last October 31 on primetime television that “I am not a thief”.
“Aquino’s declaration is as lacking in credibility and persuasiveness as Gloria Arroyo’s 2004 ‘I am sorry’ spiel,” said the CPP. In 2005, government television aired Arroyo seeking forgiveness for having called an election officer during the canvassing of votes in the 2004 elections. Just like Arroyo, Aquino went on television last week amid the sharp fall in survey ratings for the ruling government.
“Neither Arroyo then, nor Aquino now, succeeded in convincing the people,” said the CPP. “With his adamant defense of the pork barrel system, especially the several hundred billion peso discretionary fund under his authority, Aquino continues to become isolated from the Filipino people.”
“Contrary to his vehement denials, Benigno Aquino III is the Lord of Thieves, as he currently sits on top of the rotten heap that is the Philippine bureacratic capitalist state, which has not changed significantly over the past half a century in terms of corruption.”
“He is the Lord of Thieves in the same vein way that he is the Pork Barrel King,” said the CPP. “His use of the people’s money as pork barrel funds, whether in the form of the PDAF, the Presidential Social Fund or under the DAP, is equivalent to plundering the nation’s coffers.”
“He is as much a thief as the worst of the bureaucrat capitalists, the big compradors and hacienderos who have made use of their control or influence on state policy to advance their economic and political interests,” said the CPP.
“Aquino’s thievery involves the use of public funds to promote patronage and push for his political agenda. It involves the use of his office to cancel government contracts in order to renegotiate these to the advantage of his favored relatives and friends,” added the CPP. “His thievery also involves the categorization of unspent allocations, especially for cancelled contracts, as ‘savings’ and realigning these to so-called ‘accelerated disbursements’.”
“That Aquino used public funds to influence the Senate in the impeachment case against then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona is thievery of the highest order, as it involves making use of the people’s money to advance an agenda which he is personally interested in and which is politically advantageous to him,” pointed out the CPP.
“By making use of his DAP and the PDAF, Aquino has managed to organize majority support in congress, enabling him to push for his priority bills as well as initiate or block committee investigations.”
“He also promotes political patronage by allowing the people he has appointed in various government agencies and corporations to pocket fat bonuses while the vast majority of the people suffer from extremely small monthly pensions, rotten health services and other public service deficiencies,” added the CPP.
“Aquino’s endless anti-corruption chatter is nothing but a thin veil to conceal the persistent and widespread plunder of public resources by the big bureaucratic thieves under his rule,” said the CPP. “He deceives the people by feigning ignorance of the corruption under his regime, in which he is involved either directly or through the people he has put in power.”