BEFORE proceeding, we former senator, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong/BBM’ Marcos Jr., on his assumption yesterday, June 30, 2022, as our Republic’s 17th President. May the Lord grant him the courage of David and the wisdom of Solomon in leading our country to a better and brighter future. Suportahan po natin, mga kabayan, ang ating bagong pamahalaan!

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Just a week before he steps down as Senate President and the new Marcos administration steps into office, Senate President Vicente Sotto III, after the forgettable result of his vice-presidential campaign in the May 9, 2022 polls, was in the news again.

But instead of focusing on the many legislative accomplishments of the chamber, of which, there are many, we must admit, observers got their eyebrows raised as Sotto spent a lot of time discussing the “merits” of Senate Committee Report 649 that was released to the public last June 22, 2002.

The report was a product of the over six months probe of the Senate on the issue of agricultural smuggling where it conducted hearings between December 2021 and April this year.

And of course, the talk of the town that Sotto has been pushing so hard, are the names of 22 individuals purportedly involved in the smuggling of agricultural products and their alleged ‘protectors’ in government, particularly at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Department of Agriculture (DA). At the BOC side, heading the list of “shady characters” that Sotto now wants us to believe is no less than Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero, the highly-respected and bemedaled former Armed Forces chief of staff.

But people wonder whether this Senate’s ‘Smugglers’ List’ can stand up under close scrutiny?

We are raising the question because Guerrero, who also has access to other law enforcement agencies, already complained that based on his inquiries, the AFP, the Philippine National Police and even the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) had already denied providing the list to the Senate.

NICA director Edsel Batalla, who represented the agency during the hearings, flatly contradicted Sotto over the latter’s claim that it was the NICA who gave him the list. “Yes,” Batalla said in a media interview last June 28, 2022, the NICA has a record of suspected smugglers and their protectors but, he stressed, it was “different” from the list released by Sotto.

And why would these agencies, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) included, be interested in smearing the BOC and Guerrero considering the fact that all of them are directly involved in all of the BOC’s anti-smuggling drive since Guerrero assumed office in 2018?

Unless any one of them have an axe to grind against the BOC for whatever reason, they can attest to the transparent manner by which the BOC has been conducting the campaign against all forms of smuggling up to this time.

In other words, there is basis to support Guerrero’s doubt and others as well on the accuracy of the list released by Sotto considering that all these agencies are direct partners and participants in the government’s war against smugglers.

Indeed, SCR 649 merely noted that last May 17, 2022, the Senate received a “validated report” of suspected smugglers and their protectors but failed to disclose who actually provided the list and who made the validation.

Pundits also note that more than a week before Sotto went to town with the Senate report, the BOC has just ‘survived’ a barrage of negative news reports and opinion pieces accusing agency officials of involvement in corrupt activities, including Guerrero, remember that folks?

But lacking in proof and substance, the propaganda attack against the BOC immediately fizzled out. This now raises the question for us: Is the Senate the unwitting tool being used now by those with ulterior agenda at the waterfront by fooling the chamber into incorporating the list in its official report? A list that is now turning out to be of highly doubtful credibility?

Our questions are more relevant considering that when the Senate held its first hearing last December 14, 2021, Guerrero, even back then, had already challenged the senators and their perennial critics present there to “name names” so he can have them investigated and removed if warranted.

Remarkably, up to now Guerrero has not received any “validated report” as to who among his subordinates are involved in smuggling and corruption. And we would like to add here too that bot President Duterte and finance secretary Carlos Dominguez, up to their last days in office like Guerrero and Sotto, have not also received any documented complaint that Guerrero is into smuggling too.

And now that he has been dragged again into the mud, Guerrero is right in challenging Sotto and others to haul him and his subordinates before a court of law where they can have the chance to defend themselves, instead of the court of public opinion where politicians like Sotto and the “marites” in our midst has a clear advantage.

Unless Sotto can man up as to where the list came from and who validated it, if indeed this was done, his utterances against the BOC and the Senate report he has authored would surely tar the feathers of his many accomplishments as a legislator.

At the end of the day, they would eventually be branded as “fake news,” in our local tongue, “chismis.”

And we are sure that as Senate President, Sotto would hate to be remembered as a purveyor of fake news, in other words, “chismoso.”