Editorial

Washing their hands

WE cannot fault the Jesus Is Lord Movement for disowning Commissioner Jesus Martinez of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who was accused this week of accepting P4.6 million in bribes from the scandal-racked Legacy Group.

In sworn testimony before the Senate this week, the chief operating officer of the Legacy Group said Martinez accepted the bribes?including a house and lot for his son, presumably for going easy on the company?s trust-fund deficiencies. Significantly, the alleged bribery took place at a time when Legacy?s application for a permit to sell pre-need policies was pending before the commission, a job that belonged to Martinez.

In the course of the investigation, it was also revealed that Martinez gained his position as a commissioner after he was endorsed by evangelist Eddie Villanueva, who heads the Jesus is Lord Movement.

In a statement this week,the group admitted that Villanueva endorsed Martinez, but disavowed any responsibility for his actions following his appointment. The commissioner?s behavior after he got the job was entirely his responsibility, the group said.

The movement also denied that Martinez was ever a member, adding moves to connect them to the scandal were politically motivated.

On Tuesday, Citizen?s Battle against Corruption party-list Rep. Joel Villanueva, son of the movement?s leader, also admitted that in 2001, Martinez was one of Cibac?s nominees for a congressional seat, but said they had not heard from him since.

We do not dispute the congressman?s statement, but we are taken aback by the vehemence with which both the religious group and the party-list group are now washing their hands of the Martinez affair.

It seems rather silly for the religious group to insist that the elder Villanueva bears no responsibility for endorsing Martinez for the commissioner?s job in the first place, because to do so suggests that the evangelist?s endorsements are worthless and carry no weight. Certainly, that is not the case.

It is also disingenuous to cry politics when the group long ago crossed the line between religion and politics when the evangelist ran unsuccessfully for president and when his son entered Congress as a party-list representative.

None of this would have mattered had the Villanuevas not set themselves up as bastions of morality and upright behavior. Now any links between them and the embattled commissioner, tenuous as they might be, are amplified by their vehement denials of Martinez.

Endorsing Martinez was embarrassing, but failing to own responsibility for that error?that?s just dishonest.