A former top Philippines police official was indicted by US federal prosecutors on Thursday for spying and conspiring with an ex-FBI officer to pass on classified documents to Philippine officials.The former FBI officer, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was also arrested on September 10 and is accused of using the agency's database to download the documents and giving them to Michael Ray Aquino.Aquino, an ally of senior opposition politicians, was arrested at his New York residence in Queens on September 10. He is accused of passing 150 classified and sensitive documents to three public figures, each identified only as "a former high-level national public official in the Philippines."
Aragoncillo started working at the White House in the vice-president's office in 1999, while it was occupied by Al Gore, and worked there for 31 months.According to the indictment, Aragoncillo passed classified documents to Aquino between February and August this year using cellphone text and e-mail messages. They included assessments of the political situation in the Philippines and political leaders.Aquino, a former police intelligence officer, served directly under Lacson when the senator was national police chief in the 1998-2001 administration of President Joseph Estrada. Shortly after Estrada was ousted in a military-backed popular uprising in 2001, Aquino moved to the United States where he worked as a registered nurse.
That is some of the background to this little side play. But what is it all about?
According to W. Scott Thompson in the New Straits Times, Malaysia, The Filipino political merry-go-round is aburst with their greatest spy scandal ever.
Thompson’s colourful account of this drama takes the spy scandal right to the heart of the White House.
“It may be common knowledge that President Arroyo is stubborn and overrates herself, but for it to come from the Oval Office, or near it, makes it ever so different.” He asserts.
Adding “…But in the Philippines still, what America thinks is of the essence. It is routinely believed that Washington can turn a switch off and on and make or break presidents. And as long as people think it, in a perverse way it’s true.”
Model democracy
As a model for US sponsored democracy, the Philippines is a disaster. The country is riddled with entrenched corruption. Despite a reasonable beginning in the democracy stakes, the wheels fell off with President Ferdinand E. Marcos. At least the latter part of his rule has been described as "constitutional authoritarianism", but was more akin to constitutional plundering of the nation’s wealth.
In 2003 Bush used the Philippines as an example of US-sponsored “liberation” and democracy. The president told the assembled Filipino politicians he was “proud of its [the US] part in the great story of the Filipino people”. It had “liberated the Philippines from colonial rule” when it invaded the Spanish-held archipelago in 1898.Since then there have been strong indications that the Bush administration has been behind efforts to replace President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with one of the elite factions, together with a bloc of traditional military-business groups
The people of Iraq should have plenty to fear if the Philippines represents the peak model of US sponsored democracy. More so when there is growing evidence that the US administration would actively engage in undermining a democratically elected government in the Philippines for its own cynical purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment