If a picture paints a thousand words..

If this line from a famous 'Bread' song says it correctly here, then Jimmy Paule is in real trouble. Mr. Paule was believed to be the real connection to the Joc-joc Bolante Fertilizer fund cam. If Bolante is the 'mastermind', then Paule is the 'manipulator' who provides the key to most of the facts being held off by Bolante himself. But Bolante and Paule seem to have mastered the art of evading truth: Bolante by sporting a sober face, and Paule by denying knowledge of the key players in the alleged scam even if they had posed for 'posterity' in this picture below.

The witness, Leonicia Llarena (the birthday celebrant here), identified them as —(from left) Redentor Antolin, Jimmy Paule, Leonicia Marco-Llarena, Paule’s wife and daughter, Marilyn Araos and Julie Gregorio.

Paule, a businessman tagged as the fund “manipulator,” also suggested that his image was superimposed in the photo introduced at the resumption of the inquiry into what Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile summed up as a “grand conspiracy to defraud the government.”

“The picture speaks for itself, the picture paints a thousand words,” Gordon said of the photograph showing Paule attending the 50th birthday party on Aug. 23, 2004, of Leonicia Llarena, alleged financier of the so-called “farm inputs/farm implements” under the fertilizer scheme.

Amid these difficult times, the Filipino people is treated with yet another 'big show' in the Senate. I call it as such (short of 'moro-moro' or circus) until some real big fishes in the thick of fund scams (qualifying as plunders) are jailed. Except for Estrada, who earned his liberty too soon, we have yet to see some big plunderers of this country's wealth land in jail for the longest time ever.

The real challenge for the government is to confiscate the plundered wealth and return them to where they once belong and punish the plunderers. But sad to say that some people in government are too afraid to act for fear that the next 'show' will be theirs.