PNoy: Getting Garcia’s protector 'a question of timing'

“Siguro it’s just a question of timing," President Benigno Aquino III replied when reporters asked him about going after the purported protector of former military comptroller Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia. The President said he already has an idea who the protector could be. But he clarified he did not get that information from Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, as earlier stated by retired Navy Commodore Rex Robles. “We’re in the stage that we are collating [information] not just on this issue [of the protector’s identity] but on so many issues. It [has] just gotten to the point na you really have to choose, eh, sa dami ng sasampahang kaso," the President said in a chance interview with reporters. He pointed out that government resources will be “diluted" if prosecutors pursue all the cases at the same time. The President said his administration was getting “more details of each and every facet of what transpired." He explained that he will leave it up to the secretary of justice and other members of the legal team to determine the cases to be filed “to afford the maximum chances of conviction so that these things will not be repeated." “’Yung kay Mr. Robles, marami siyang free time siguro, kung anu-ano ang mga nako-concoct niya," Aquino added. “I execute the laws of the land and part and parcel of that is that you do not bring accusations without the corresponding evidence already on hand," he said. Trillanes — who had, in 2003 and 2007, led attempts to topple the Arroyo administration — indicated last Thursday that the alleged corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines may go all the way up to the former President who now sits as the elected representative of Pampanga’s 2nd District. Trillanes on Monday, however, said he never directly linked former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to alleged corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. If Garcia, who stands accused of illegally amassing more than P303 million, did get this hefty amount, then "those higher than him at the time got more," Trillanes alleged. – VVP/MRT/VS, GMA News