ast week U.S. District Judge William H. Walls imposed a six-year prison sentence on Filipino Michael Ray Aquino, shattering his dreams of working as a nurse in the United States where he fled to leave his sordid past behind. As an officer in the dreaded Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) that existed during the Estrada Administration, Aquino's involvement has long been widely suspected in both the Kuratong Baleleng massacre and the Dacer-Corbito double-murder.

Aquino will most likely be deported back to the Philippines after serving his sentence. And if Department of Justice (DOJ) head, Raul Gonzales has his way, he could also stand trial for espionage or sedition charges upon his return.

Aquino's co-accused in this spy scandal Leandro Aragoncillo, received an even longer sentence from Judge Walls. Aragoncillo was handed what many would characterize as a very lenient 10-year sentence as part of his plea-bargain with the government. Absent such plea-bargain, he could have received the death penalty. Another convicted spy, Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst, was given life imprisonment in 1987 and remains behind bars to this day.

Aragoncillo personifies that dismal characteristic in some of us Filipinos who on the surface appear normal—even ordinary, but underneath have no moral compass. Despite his almost laughable courtroom pleading that he did it to help Filipinos rise out of poverty, it was obvious to the judge and the prosecutor that he did it for his own self-aggrandizement. This was his ticket to "Easy Street." Aragoncillo's US Government pension would pale by comparison to the hoard of money he stood to make if the Arroyo administration was toppled and Estrada was brought back to power because of "intelligence" he provided.