CHICKENPIESenator Jinggoy Estrada just completed the hat trick. Not football. Not basketball. Plunder.
The Sandiganbayan might need to start a loyalty card. Three cases, three stamps. The fourth one gets you a free kwek-kwek.
This time it's flood control money. Before it was Pork Barrel money. Before that — also money. The pattern is consistent; only the budget line item changes.
Here's the remarkable part: it's not the plunder that's remarkable. We've had fifteen years of plunder cases. The remarkable part is that we keep being surprised. Every time news breaks, someone on social media says "finally." Finally. As if the third case will be the one that sticks when the first two were already in the filing cabinet collecting dust.
The first plunder case against Senator Estrada was filed in 2014. That's twelve years ago. In twelve years, a child can go from kindergarten to graduating high school in the Philippines. A plunder case cannot get through discovery. At this rate, Jinggoy could be on case number six before case one reaches a verdict.
Senator Estrada has been a senator for longer than some of his constituents have been legally allowed to vote. Three plunder cases, one senate seat. The voters gave him back his pass twice since case one was filed. Either they're extraordinarily forgiving, or they know exactly what they're voting for. The senator would call that a mandate.
Meanwhile, the flood control projects allegedly tapped for the budget were in places that flood every typhoon season. Not theoretically. Literally. These are the places on the news every November and December — water to the waist, residents on rooftops, the same rooftops, the same reporters, every year, asking what happened to the budget.
The answer was apparently in the filing cabinet. It always is.
Jinggoy Estrada will continue attending Senate sessions. He will make statements. He will vote on bills. He will run again, possibly. And if this third case goes the way of the first two, the only thing that changes is the docket number.
Hat trick. Your honor.
