Lessons from Emil Aguinaldo's Experience
StartFragmentHere's a list of all the graft cases filed by Emil Aguinaldo against Jesse Robredo and his cohorts.
Out of 70 cases, 28 were dismissed by the Ombudsman for reasons that they are "politically motivated." This, without looking hard into the evidence accompanying each complaint.
Naturally, Jesse enjoyed the perks of being Tabako's Niño Bonito. Not to mention the fact that he had his own personal backers and contacts within the Office of the Ombudsman which extended way beyond Tabako's term (remember Frank Felizmenio, Deception 1).
The Ombudsman would dismiss each case, but Aguinaldo was unstoppable. He would keep on filing one case after the other, in a relentless fashion that inconvenienced the shit out of Jesse Robredo.
It got to a point that Jesse simply couldn't contain the damage caused by Aguinaldo's tenacity that he decided to settle the issue once and for all.
In June 2008, Emil Aguinaldo boarded a bus to Manila to follow up on the cases he filed in the Office of the Ombudsman. He disappeared without a trace and was unheard of since.
A month ago, we talked to former Naga City Councilor Luis Ortega, and he told us this rather gruesome story of how his friend Emil was abducted and murdered by henchmen from Cavite hired by Jesse Robredo. How a witness at a vulcanizing shop in Quezon Province saw Aguinaldo beaten to a pulp inside a car that he claimed belonged to Jesse as the abductors attended to a flat tire. How another witness, a local boatman, told him that Emil's body was chopped to pieces and thrown into the deep waters of Ticao Pass in Masbate, around the exact same place Jesse's plane crashed later in 2012.
It was a horrific tale, something straight out of a Johnnie To Triad flick or a Brillante Mendoza/Eli Roth adaptation. It's a testament of what unspeakable evils men are capable of in the name of power, greed and survival. We can only shudder in utter disbelief.
Which brings us, again, to the subject of filing cases. It is not enough that we simply file cases as Emil did. He had all the necessary evidence, but he lacked leverage. In the end, evil triumphed.
And it would require nature itself to collect Jesse's dues. Call it karma, call it retributive justice, for us it is simply gravitational physics. What goes up, must naturally come down. Now that Jesse is gone and Leni has taken over to continue her husband's legacy of lies, we can either wait for nature to collect or do the smart thing and learn valuable lessons from Emil Aguinaldo's experience.
Leverage. Something we can gain only if we bond together and unite. Justice is political, politics is all about numbers, so numerical superiority is what we need to bring this fight into its rightful conclusion.
Together as one, let us show them the true power of the Collective.
