R

eality bites. And seriously, it hurts '€” really hurts. That'€™s exactly what beauty queen-turned-politician Angelina '€œAngie'€ Sondakh and academician-turned-bureaucrat Rudi Rubiandini have both discovered.

Angie and Rudi '€” who were involved in different corruption cases '€” apparently endured bitter experiences when dealing with legal matters in their trials and eventually could not withstand the pressure of being put in the dock for their respective corruption trials.

The two, at separate occasions and times, could not control their emotions and shed tears in public upon learning the consequences of being '€œpersonally charged'€ or '€œpersonally convicted'€ of responsibility in the cases they were involved in.

Angie, a former member of the House of Representatives (DPR) from the ruling Democratic Party (PD), paid dearly for her decision to protect fellow party members by committing perjury during her trial.

She was convicted for accepting kickbacks from private companies in return for project opportunities in Education and Culture Ministry and Youth and Sports Ministry tenders.

The graft convict now has to serve a much longer prison term after the Supreme Court in November increased on appeal her sentence to 12 years in prison, far higher than the four-and-a-half-years handed down by the lower court. The Supreme Court also ordered the former beauty queen to return her ill-gotten Rp 12.58 billion (US$1.07 million) and $2.35 million to the state or serve an additional five years in prison.

The lower Jakarta Corruption Court previously fined her only Rp 250 million, while the Jakarta High Court upheld her sentence and retained the amount of the fine. She had not been ordered to pay restitution by the two lower courts.

In a separate time frame and occasion, Rudi Rubiandini, former chief of the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas), admitted to accepting kickbacks, but insisted (while bursting into tears) that he did not take a single cent of the money for his personal use.

Rudi said after his first hearing at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Tuesday that there were demands from the agency'€™s '€œstakeholders'€ for money in exchange for the smooth operation of the agency.

According to Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors, Rudi also allegedly accepted money from his underlings. Former SKKMigas deputy chief Yohanes Widjanarko, now the agency'€™s chief, has been accused of giving Rudi $600,000 while other top officials, Gerhard Rumeser and Iwan Rahman, allegedly handed over $350,000 and $50,000, respectively.

Rudi has been charged with involvement in more than six instances of illicit practices and allegedly accepted a total of $2.42 million in kickbacks.

Among the allegations include the S$200,000 (US$157,000) and $900,000 bribes from the president of Singapore-based oil trading firm Kernel Oil, Widodo Ratanachaithong, through Simon Gunawan Tanjaya, an executive at the firm, in return for Rudi appointing Fossus Energy Pte. Ltd. (another firm represented by Widodo) as the successful purchaser of Senipah oil and condensate in June 2013.

Rudi is also accused of accepting $522,500 from the president director of PT Kaltim Parna Industri, Artha Meris Simbolon, for lowering the price of gas sold to the firm.

Prosecutors allege that Rudi laundered the ill-gotten money by buying cars, houses and luxury watches.

Both Angie and Rudi have apparently been victims of a complicated, vicious cycle of corruption that is largely believed to have involved more than mere '€œmiddlemen'€ like them. Angie was only a legislator on the House'€™s Commission X on sports and education, who did not have a final say on policies or recommendations issued by the commission as all of them are products of collegial and collective decisions made by the commission.

Rudi indeed held the leading position at SKKMigas. However, the agency is under the supervision of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, and as such any of the agency'€™s decisions or policies are subject to ministry recognition or approval.

As Angie has apparently remained tight-lipped on whether or not there were individuals higher in rank '€” particularly within her party'€™s rank and file '€” involved in the corruption for which she has been convicted, the case has stopped at her for now. Many legal observers have regretted her stance of keeping much of the information to herself, which led to her being held solely responsible for the case and serving a much longer prison term as well as having to return all the ill-gotten money herself.

Rudi, on the contrary, took a different path '€” revealing, though implicitly, that there were other persons who enjoyed all the ill-gotten money originating from all the kickbacks he accepted. The question is, why did he reveal all this only once his trial had begun and not during the investigation into the case against him, when details of the other individuals could have been included in the dossier on the case against him?

The moral of the story is that Angie and Rudi should have gone beyond admitting their mistakes before the panel of judges. They don'€™t deserve to take full responsibility for a crime of which they were but just a part.

It will surely be a tough decision for Angie and Rudi as full disclosure of the facts and truth would surely have consequences for each of them, the maximum of which could be in the form of attempts on their lives.

It is thus the responsibility of the KPK '€” in cooperation with the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) '€” to provide protection for both of them if they eventually choose to disclose all the facts and truth
behind their cases.

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.