Like Zeus throwing a thunderbolt from Mount Olympus, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile zeroed in on Commissioner Jesus Martinez of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "You're lying here," Enrile told Martinez pointblank Monday last week. "We'll see to it that you're disciplined."

Earlier, Enrile also bore down on Martinez's boss, SEC chair Fe Barin, when he told her not to waste time in effecting the freezing of the remaining
assets of the Legacy Group.

Enrile told Barin that palliative measures against Legacy will no longer do. He said the problem of Legacy running away with the money of its banks' depositors, clients of its pre-need firms and investors must be treated like a "cancer."

Exasperated by the revelation that the SEC had failed to get wind of the alleged shenanigans at Legacy, Enrile pressed the exit of Barin and Martinez from SEC.
"Honor dictates that you people must go," said the Senate chief, whose forte as a corporate and trial lawyer came to the fore when he grilled Delos Angeles, the SEC officials and all the others involved in the Legacy mess.

Under questioning by Enrile, two former Legacy officials, Carolina Hiñola and Namnama Santos, also revealed that their boss, had ordered them to release P13 billion from the Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc. at the height of the 2007 election campaign.

With neither Hiñola nor Santos knowing what the R13 million was for, as drawn by some senators during the hearing was that the money of LCPI's plan holders may have been used as part of campaign funds.

By now the public knows that Legacy's rural banks, pre-need companies and investment firms had closed shop, leaving depositors and clients holding an empty bags. Reports have it that their collectible from Legacy runs around P14 billion.

It is for the sake of these people who had lost lifetime savings that Enrile spewed fire on concerned government agencies which treated Delos Angeles with a kid's glove because of his political connections.

To Enrile, the important thing was to secure first whatever assets remained with Legacy to cover the claims being made by its duped clients.

Among those given the marching order was the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation which is in charge of facilitating payment of the insured deposit of shuttered Legacy banks.

The victims of Legacy have found a true and powerful champion in the Senate president who, as seen in the hearing, would not take any obfuscation
of facts, much more outright lying under oath, sitting down.

For sure, when Enrile said Martinez would be disciplined by the Senate, he must mean jail time for the SEC official at the very least for contempt, similar to what was meted to a Senate witness in the fertilizer fund scam who lied through his teeth.

The outrage over Legacy as vividly illustrated by the senator has already prompted Malacañang to suspend Martinez and to order his investigation by the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission.

Kudos to Enrile for illustrating what the ideal Senate president should be: One who dutifully attends and participates in Senate committee hearings, and one who is hands on in charting the course of the upper chamber.