EDITORIAL — ‘Unintentional’ allegations
The chairman of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board was suspended because of the allegations of Jefferson Tumbado about corruption in the LTFRB, hurled in a press conference last Monday.
Tumbado, the former head executive assistant of suspended LTFRB chief Teofilo Guadiz III, also insinuated that the payoffs, amounting to P5 million per approval of a franchise application, transport route or special permit, reached all the way up to Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista and Malacañang. Bautista has slammed the allegation.
Accusations of corruption in the LTFRB are not new. Some lawmakers pondered the possibility of conducting a congressional inquiry into the latest allegations. Tumbado aired his accusations in a press conference organized by transport group Manibela, during which the group also announced a jeepney strike beginning this Monday over the alleged corruption and the jeepney modernization program.
But on Wednesday, Tumbado publicly apologized to Guadiz, Bautista and the Office of the President. Recanting his accusations, Tumbado declared in a sworn affidavit that his allegations were “unintentional and misguided,” and that “things were just said out of impulse and irrational thinking, misjudgment and poor decision-making.”
One doesn’t hurl such serious accusations unintentionally and out of impulse. There has to be a motivation for it; Tumbado doesn’t look like the type who suffers from temporary insanity. There also has to be a more plausible reason for his recantation.
The National Bureau of Investigation, on its own initiative, has launched a probe into the allegations of Tumbado. His recantation will be part of the NBI’s probe, according to the Department of Justice.
While the NBI is conducting the investigation, authorities at the same time must consider harsher penalties for perjury, which makes a mockery of the criminal justice system, weak enough as it is. An official remains suspended on allegations of corruption, and the reputation of the transport secretary has been tarnished, thanks to Tumbado’s original story. If someone put him up to it, he should tell the NBI. And if his original allegations about corruption are true,
