PRAYER offered by this writer for the second 2009 Cabinet meeting:

“Our Father in heaven, Holy be Your Name. Today, we, members of the Cabinet, together with our beloved President, are gathered in Your Name, as we have entered into the New Year, to renew our commitment to God and country, to do service to our people.

“We welcome the new year, 2009, with a prayer that the jaded hopes and dreams of the year passed will be fulfilled and realized, because for all the tests and trials which beset our beloved country in 2008, the dedicated efforts of our President to lead our nation to better times have not failed our people. Despite world recession and downgraded economies, even among the most advanced and powerful nations, our country has, thus far, survived, and there is renewed hope among our people.

“And so we collectively pray for Your continuing guidance and blessing, to enlighten us as we continue to be true advocates for peace, justice and national reconciliation. We proudly declare, under the leadership of our President, that we are one nation, under one flag! Please, dear Lord, let us realize and enjoy Your freedom, the freedom and joy which no one in this world can give. We do not ask for freedom from trials and disappointments, or from sorrow, not freedom from pain and circumstances; but the freedom You have in abundance, which are the freedom from despair, the freedom from concern, from worry, from fear. We pray that You wrap yourself tightly upon us, and in our beloved President.

“Today, Satan’s work seems to make our lives complicated; clouding national issues, laying heavy burdens in all of us; trying to steal our spiritual vision and understanding, through promoting political conflicts and hate, by spreading lies and false ideas, thus, impeding well laid-out plans for national development.

“Lord, give us this day our daily bread, and the food in the table for our poor, roof over their heads and clothing to cover their nakedness. Give us the heart to share with the least of our brethren; the heart to share every
day that we live, Christmas or no Christmas. Help us to be instruments of Your peace. Bring us from the valley of despair to the mountaintop of hope. For with You, Heavenly Father, nothing is impossible. Without You—nothing. Amen.”

* * *

It seems too coincidental that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), which is being run by coup veterans from the Magdalo group of Philippine Marines, has started broadsides against the Department of Justice (DOJ). And suddenly, the Supreme Court has also become the subject for destabilization with no less than the Chief Justice as the identified target.

Is this merely a coincidence, or an orchestrated attempt to destabilize the government through a subtle attack on the judicial system? Everybody knows that if the judicial system is destroyed, chaos will ensue and the organized government may be immobilized.

Is this part of a plot hatched by the opposition, or sinister forces in the military ranks who have repeatedly tried but failed to oust the Arroyo government by direct assault behind the uniform of adventurous military officers?

So now it is clear that they are attempting to destabilize the judicial system and hope to attain the same sinister result.

This disinformation campaign obviously emanated from the PDEA, and must have been a concoction of the battalion of military adventurists now running the affairs of that agency.

Why do I say this? Because the hullabaloo that hogged the headlines for so many days and succeeded to besmirch the reputations of prosecutors of the DOJ came about because of what now appears to be an unfounded accusation that these prosecutors were bribed some P50 million in order to dismiss the drug case of the so-called Alabang Boys.

No less than retired Gen. Dionisio Santiago, head of the PDEA, admitted under oath before Congress and before the President during the Cabinet meeting on January 14, when I confronted him with the issue of the P50-million bribe before that meeting, that there was no such bribe.

Marichu Villanueva, a very responsible columnist of the Philippines Star, said it loud and clear: “Under intense questioning by the congressmen about the alleged P50-million bribe, Santiago answered, ‘There was none. We used that alleged P50-million bribe to psyche out the prosecutors.’”

Psyche out who? Are the DOJ prosecutors the enemy? Is there any evidence stronger than this to prove that the PDEA was actually engaged in destabilization by way of unfounded attacks against the DOJ prosecutors?

With this revelation, I am convinced the prosecutors of the DOJ have been subjected to scurrilous libel that besmirched their names, including those of their families, vilified them in the eyes of the people and may have damaged their reputations beyond repair.

But I am confident that in God’s good time, these prosecutors and the DOJ, who have all “gone to hell,” will soon emerge and return triumphant to continue serving our country, who, like Audie Murphy, the World War II hero who won congressional medals of honor for his gallantry, it was “to hell and back.”

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