Passion For Reason
The Empress strikes back
By Raul Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:11:00 02/15/2008
Filed Under: NBN deal, Graft & Corruption
MANILA, Philippines -- A group calling itself Kongreso ng Mamamayan [Citizens’ Congress] purchased a whole page of the Inquirer on Wednesday, for an ad carrying the title “Issues we need to raise before … Jun Lozada is declared a hero.” It went into painful detail to show that Lozada was a flawed witness even by his own account. They conclude: “Is Lozada a hero? He [has] likened himself to a Jedi knight who has chosen the bright side [yet] Lozada, by his own admission, was never at the bright side.”
Kongreso misses the point altogether. Lozada’s public penance enhanced his credibility; it did not destroy it. Kongreso forgets that the chief whistle-blower against Joseph Estrada was no less than the warlord Chavit Singson, and whoever imputes virginal virtue to Chavit is either delusional or sick.
Listen to Kongreso’s plaint: Lozada’s “testimony itself revealed he knows a lot about greed and he is himself a practitioner of the dysfunctional procurement system that he talked about.” Now recall the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan’s decision in Estrada’s plunder case: “The principal witness of the prosecution [for the diversion of ‘jueteng’ underground lottery money] is former Ilocos Sur Governor Luis ‘Chavit’ C. Singson.” Chavit testified that he himself delivered “protection money” to Erap every month. While the Arroyo government prosecuted Estrada for plunder, it never included Chavit in the charges; indeed, he could at least have been indicted first, even if only to be discharged later as a state witness.
Fast forward now to the Kongreso conclusion: “Lozada should not also go unpunished for the irregularities he [has] brazenly committed….” Kongreso has missed not just the ironies of history, but the travesty in its own sense of justice as well. Kongreso seems more outraged that Lozada tried merely to “moderate” greed, but not that Benjamin Abalos asked for the equivalent of around P6.5 billion in bribe money (based on Lozada’s sworn testimony) or that Abalos said to Romulo Neri, “Sec, may 200 ka dito” [“Secretary, there’s 200 for you here”] (based on Neri’s sworn testimony).
Finally, Kongreso misses the subtleties of Pinoy culture. The Filipino imagination is full of imagery about regaining grace through penance, and the power of repentance for deliverance from sin. Yet Kongreso makes much of the self-confessed sins of Lozada, in contrast to the shenanigans of the First Gentleman and Abalos which remain allegations at this stage. Now who do you think will the Pinoy consider more credible? The sinner who makes a public penance? Or those who continue to deny, to fudge, and -- come to think of it -- who would even go as far as kidnapping a key witness?
Kongreso impugns Lozada’s motives: “He may also have been consumed by vengeance because of the killing of his brother in 2001 during a botched police operation.” Let me ask those who are behind Kongreso: Do you honestly believe that the common folk will identify with the police? Or will they identify with the victim of the stupidity that led to the killing of Lozada’s brother, and to the callousness that led to the cover-up after the fact? Was it really good propaganda to remind the Filipino public that -- just like many of them -- Lozada had a personal reason to feel aggrieved?
Remember the speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives during the ouster of Speaker Jose de Venecia. When the ringleaders spoke of reform and transparency, I wondered: How many Filipinos actually believed the sanctimonious crap? Yet when the others spoke about their private agonizing, their “utang na loob” [debt of gratitude] to De Venecia for all the past favors, how they were torn between their “Ninong Joe” [Godfather Joe] and their “Ninang Gloria” [Godmother Gloria], and how they must take care of the needs of their constituents, I felt, much to my own dismay, that this was the language that Filipinos truly understood in their heart of hearts.
For the skeptical Filipino, the personal explanations were the ones that truly resonated, not the normative accounts. Indeed, even with Lozada, I believed him most when he spoke of his innermost fears and his feeling that he “will have to tell the truth,” and I believed him least when he spoke about why the Filipino is worth sacrificing for (though this was the one guy who actually came close to death as of Wednesday last week).
In a recent forum organized by the University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies, entitled “When Institutions Fail,” I asked: Why have we come to rely on the “heroic whistle-blower”? By heroic, I include the likable as well as the villainous, because I refer more to the scale of the sacrifice we demand of truth-tellers, and why Lozada was kidnapped, why he was surrounded by nuns to hold a press conference at 2 a.m., and why the simple act of telling the truth is an occasion of high political drama.
Our Constitution was designed so that we can enforce public accountability through the mechanical working of institutional checks and balances. What Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has done is to destroy those institutions and pervert just about all the agencies for public accountability. Impeachment? Just trigger the one-year bar with a bogus complaint, lock in the votes, and divide the spoils with pliant congressmen. The Ombudsman? No worry. It wouldn’t move against the Palace and, even under pain of contempt from the Supreme Court, it hemmed and hawed before it charged anyone for the fraudulent computerization of the Commission on Electins. And the Department of Justice? Oh, that’s just a misnomer.
Amid the debris of failed institutions, only the headstrong whistle-blower remains standing as the last check on presidential abuse. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should know the power of a witness who steps forward to tell the truth. That is how she came to power at EDSA People Power II and, should it come to pass, that is how she may be dethroned as well.
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More Inquirer columns
Previous columns:
The Chief Justice replies – 2/07/08
Judicial activism and its limits – 2/01/08
Finding the Filipino Einstein – 1/24/08
A matter of (dis)trust – 01/17/08
A university for the Philippines – 01/10/08
‘In this country, symbols matter’ – 01/03/08
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