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| Photo courtesy of The Manila Times |
According to the recent column of veteran columnist
and former Cabinet Secretary Rigoberto Tiglao, Senator Grace Poe could be held
liable for graft for shamelessly showing off her conflict by leading the
Senate hearing on ABS-CBN’s franchise.
What is astonishing is that she saw no conflict of
interest in this, saying that she called the hearing on ABS-CBN since she is
the chairman of the Committee on Public Services and that she is just “one of
24 senators.” Tiglao mentioned.
In Tiglao’s February 28 column for the Manila
Times, he quoted Trixie Cruz-Angeles, a lawyer and a well-known blogger, that Senator
Poe violated the Constitution’s Article VI, Section 14, part of which states
that, “No senator or member of the House of Representatives shall be directly or
indirectly interested financially in any contract with, or in any franchise or special privilege granted by the government.”
The lady senator could be held criminally liable for
graft over the blatant conflict of interest, as
per Atty. Cruz-Angeles, he added.
Poe is violating the Anti-Graft and
Corrupt Practices Act, whose Section 3(h) lists as a corrupt practice a government
official having direct or indirect “financial or pecuniary interest in any
business, contract or transaction in connection with which he intervenes or
takes part in his official capacity.”
“Poe certainly intervened in the process for a
company seeking a franchise law. She called for a hearing of a committee she
chaired that was a shameless propaganda shill for ABS-CBN,” Tiglao said.
The Manila Times columnist condemned Poe for
lack of delicadeza since it was she who initiated for the hearing amid
ABS-CBN’s franchise woes.
The hearing was conducted February 24 by the Senate
committee on public services, which Poe chairs.
The committee
composes of four vice chairmen: Senators Panfilo Lacson, Ramon Revilla Jr.,
Emmanuel Pacquiao and Sherwin Gatchalian.
“Poe obviously doesn’t care about the notion of
delicadeza. If she had an ounce of this value, she would have inhibited herself
from any involvement in the Congress discussions and debates about ABS-CBN’s
pending franchise application,” Tiglao mentioned
Tiglao added that Poe had flaunted about her
family’s connection with ABS-CBN in the past, with the network getting
exclusive rights to the movies featuring the senator’s father, the late action
star Fernando Poe Jr.
“Ang Probinsyano” is also based on Poe’s late father
Fernando Poe Jr.’s (FPJ) 1997 movie of the same title. It is inconceivable that
Susan and FPJ didn’t get any royalties for allowing ABS-CBN to base its series
on the 1997 “Ang Probinsyano.” Roces, in fact, has been a major ABS-CBN
“talent.”
And
Susan Roces, is also a mainstay on the hit ABS-CBN television series, “Ang
Probinsyano.”
“If
ABS-CBN closes down because it can’t get its franchise, Poe and her family
would, of course, get nothing from that contract. Do the other senators who
emotionally defended ABS-CBN at the hearing — several of them saying that they
cannot imagine ABS-CBN being taken off the air — know this?” Tiglao asked.
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