Normally reliable sources have told this writer that former agriculture secretary Jocelyn ‘Joc Joc’ Bolante has either returned to the country or may already be on a flight en route to Manila.
The earlier than expected return of Bolante (reports over the weekend had said the central figure in the PhP728-M fertilizer fund scam was likey to come ack towards the end of the month.) comes as Malacanang today reiterated that Bolante is on his own as he is now a private citizen.
At least one source in the intelligence community told me “a man fitting Bolante’s description” was seen disembarking from a plane at Diosdado Macapagal International Airport at the former US military base in Clark Pampanga late in the after yesterday afternoon or evening.
A third source told me Bolante was set to be put aboard a Manila-bound flight by US immigration authorities.
Interestingly, just yesterday Bolante, through his lawyer filed a 5-page manifestation asking the Supreme Court to nullify the Senate’s December 12, 2005 order for his arrest for failing to testify before the chamber.
Bolante asserts that since the Senate probe into the scandal into P728-million fertilizer fund scam had already been completed, the arrest order is now “moot and academic.”
If Bolante has indeed returned after being denied asylum in the US, the guessing game will now heighten over whether he will spill the beans about the case or if like former NEDA chief Romulo Neri, he will attempt to invoke executive privilege.
Note: Despite the information revealed by my sources, this writer is not discounting the remote chance, absent official word from authorities, that Bolante is not yet back.
Update: It is now being reported by on line news media that Mr. Bolante is ‘due back’ on Tuesday, Oct. 28. But talk swirling in the coffee shops is he is already undergoing secury and legal debriefing.
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He is already a private citizen,maybe he willl do what Iggy Arroyo did,and use his right to privacy.
I don’t know.Let’s ask the Lawyers if he can use the executive privilege ek ek.
This administration should be blown to smithereens. It’s been one scandal after the other, and though the Fertilizer Fund Scam came early, there were many even before it. When I look back now on these last 7 years, it boggles my mind what a rotten, festering sore of a country we’ve had ever since GMA took over. She makes Erap look like a real saint. Are we just imagining these things? Are we just destabilizers? They are smoking some powerful shit by the Pasig, aren’t they? But as Longfellow wrote,
Man is unjust, but God is just.
And sooner or later, Justice will prevail!
how God’s mill grind…
“slow but sure,”
according to Herbert
“slow yet exceedingly small,”
Longfellow asserts
adding…with patience
God stand waiting
and with exactness
all He is grinding.
Karl.
Yes and know, in relation to questions about his executive department dealings while he was still usec.
Ding,
Then, I hope the yes part is not about the right to privacy.
Kundi maghintay na lang tayo after 2010 and charge all of them,kaya for this to happen I say no to chacha before 2010 and hopefully comelec will do its part(of ensuring clean elections thanks to the teachers) as well as the voters.
Judging from what happened yesterday sa PNP,DILG hearings talagang me paraan talaga para mawalan ng saysay ang mga senate investigations.
If its jueteng money,then that is still a continuing problem for our elections.
We’re on the same page, bro.