There are two Oñates in the news today — one is a politician, the mayor of Palompon, Leyte, and the other is an “enimatic businessman who dabbles as a political operator for the last 30 years” (his own description of himself).
We do not know if Mayor Ramon Oñate of Palompon and political operator Noel Oñate of PIRMA are relatives. What we do know is that they share the same surname, and they are involved in the role of villains in the current narratives about environmental issues in Leyte and the controversial gathering of signatures for people’s initiative to revise the Constitution.
The two Oñates are in the news not because of some honorable or exemplary achievements that they did, but due to some unpalatable indelicacies that have huge potential damage to be inflicted on the Filipino people, in the whole island of Leyte and elsewhere.
Lawyer Lloyd Surigao, one of the legal counsels of San Joaquin residents who sued DBSN Farms Agriventures Inc., which Attorney Surigao said is owned by the family of Mayor Oñate, for violation of environmental laws, is happy that RTC Branch 45 in Tacloban permitted the search and excavation by the DENR of several areas in the Palompon Protected Watershed being occupied by the poultry farm.
The diggings by the DENR resulted in the discovery of several tons of discarded chicken parts and bio-debris dumped in the protected area for years now, including hundreds of kilos of expired canned food products and relief goods, said to be from the Yolanda supertyphoon assistance. The mayor will have a lot of explaining to do to the public: the question is how the relief goods which should be distributed to the people and eaten during the emergency ended up 3 feet below the forest floor.
Mayor Onate’s answer is to go the court and requested for the quashing of the search warrant and invalidation of the DENR excavation report, which were both denied by Judge Georgina Uy Perez.
Atty. Surigao said: ”Simplehan na lang natin. When the DENR excavated 3 areas pointed out by our witnesses, lahat positive sa basura. That is proof that wastes were dumped there. Now who is lying? Yung basura, kitang kita na, pero ‘yung mayor, nagpapalusot pa rin.”
People’s Initiative
Remembers the “EDSA Pwera” TV ad for the fake people’s initiative? Noel Oñate, convener of the People's Initiative for Modernization and Reform Action (PIRMA) admitted to the Senate investigating the fake people’s initiative that he forked over P55 million to pay for the first 8 days of the television advertising campaign for the PI. It would have cost a total of P211 M for running the ads for eight weeks as was the intention.
Noel would not tell the Senate who else among rich Filipinos funded the media campaign, and later said he returned their money. My friend Manila Times columnist Bobi Tiglao sees this as a tricky maneuver because by then, the “conspiracy” among Oñate, Romualdez and Marcos had begun to unravel.
Tiglao wrote: “In the third Senate hearing, in what is obviously a maneuver to avoid naming his co-funders, Oñate claimed they had withdrawn their funding, and he had returned their money. This was done on February 8, however, after the Senate hearings had started to unravel the conspiracy. They're hoping that in this absurd maneuver, they can claim that since they withdrew their funding for this plot, the Senate has no right to demand that they be identified.
Tiglao continued, quoting his sources close to Oñate and the Senate probe: "If they had been identified, it would have been obvious that these magnates who were willing to part with their money quickly with little discussion were close to Speaker Martin Romualdez, or Marcos himself. They even rushed the operation, as the plan was to get the required number of signatures [on] January 14, and the plebiscite undertaken to ratify the amendment before Congress resumed its session on January 21, so the Senate would be presented with a fait accompli."
We share my friend Bobi’s astonishment on the way the PI was conceived and implemented by talking heads Noel Oñate and company. Tiglao wrote, “Can you believe that only Oñate and Anthony Abad — who insists he was only an adviser even if he is the sole person authorized by PIRMA to represent the fictitious signatories — are the only real people that have emerged to claim they are leading the "people's initiative?"
“It is astonishing that they thought they could fool the nation that they got 8 million Filipinos in six weeks to sign a petition supporting the move to amend the Constitution for Congress to vote jointly, a complex concept requiring much explanation.”
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