I DO not know Ted Failon. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a producer for the ABS-CBN News Channel, although I have never personally met the “TV Patrol” anchor.

I write this as someone who was riding home in a taxicab listening to reporters talk about evidence and paraffin tests and an investigation of “the incident” at Ted Failon’s house, not knowing what the incident was.

And even with affidavits and front-page articles and news stories across all platforms, like the fruit vendors in Antipolo and tricycle drivers in Panay who I heard engaged in vicious debate, I still do not know exactly what happened on April 15th, and will not attempt to hazard a guess on whether “the incident” was suicide or foul play.

The story is delicious, dramatic, the delight of every newsroom – with the exception, of course, of the one Failon belongs to.

It becomes, as it is retold in cafés and cafeterias across the country, the stuff of soap operas, the sort that triggers the national imagination: blood, tears, a woman wronged, an erstwhile king who falls from his throne. It was Failon who shot her, said many who shook their heads sadly. The outspoken, no-holds-barred newscaster is now on the other side of the law – see how he likes it.

I will say I was not surprised when lawyer Persida Acosta suddenly appeared on scene, wagging a righteous finger against the police.

The Public Attorney’s Office is meant to offer aid to indigents who cannot afford legal services. There are hundreds of thousands, both innocent and guilty, who have been tossed into the cramped jails of this country without the benefit of competent representation.

The PAO is only one body with limited resources, it cannot reasonably be expected to stand for all those who by circumstance or choice are caught on the wrong side of the law.

And yet the good PAO chief Acosta gets a call from Failon partner Korina Sanchez, and races to be interviewed on dzMM to defend Failon on national radio, and went so far as to aid Failon in leaving the Quezon City police station in the midst of an investigation Thursday to visit his wife.

Failon may have been the victim of police harassment, which Commission on Human Rights Chair Leila de Lima pointed out, but it is no reason for Acosta to take the opportunity to dance in the spotlight for a man who, unlike many Filipinos, has the means and the intelligence to protect himself with able representation. Perhaps indigent cases are not heard under klieg lights.

Public sympathy may not have been on the side of Failon when the incident was reported, but it is with him now, as he becomes the unlikely victim of police brutality. Many may have been interested in the story of the big man brought down by his own sins, but what happened after resonates more.

These are, after all, the same policemen who drag bleeding suspects out of parked cars to execute them on a crowded highway. They are the men who complain about the unfairness of filmmakers and television directors for portraying badly men in uniform, and who are demanding to be portrayed better to “up our public ratings.”

They are the same good gentlemen who were mugging for the camera as Failon stood in his home on April 15th. After all, it was Failon who for years railed against police brutality, who was hard-line and at times heartless in denouncing politicians and policemen.

When the men behind the badge dragged Trina Etong’s sister Pamela screaming out of the New Era General Hospital, a short while before Trina breathed her last, they made Failon the victim.

This is what Kaye Etong, Failon’s daughter said while sitting in the ABS-CBN newsroom last Thursday to the police: My mother killed herself. She ended her life and died alone. My aunt and uncle were hauled off to jail. My father is being accused, and is attempting to bring our jailed helpers and relatives together to be with my mother.

The police are hounding us. I am here, on national television, announcing that I believe my mother chose to leave us and die. Now, is there anything else you want to put us through?

Understand that this is what that admission means: that one girl has been pushed to a corner to a point that she is announcing to the public that this woman, the mother who gave birth to her, who was supposed to love her and cherish her and stand by her, has chosen instead to die, knowing the consequences to the two daughters left motherless and guilt-stricken.

Policemen ordered the warrantless arrests of the driver, the helpers and even the in-laws of Failon. They were asked for warrants, they claimed they needed none, “because we’re already here.”

Article 3 Section 12 of the Constitution requires the reading of the Miranda upon arrest, a concept foreign to many members of the police. Presidential Decree 1829, Penalizing Obstruction of Apprehension of Criminal Offenders, was a martial law decree, one that human rights lawyer Theodore Te says does not cover the Failon case.

Nobody brought up this law when the government protected Romulo Neri from interrogation, and the police were quiet when asked why they were carefully pretending to investigate the various crimes being charged to the military.

Police officials admitted that arrests were made, repeatedly said Failon was being treated the same as any other person charged with a crime, and yet instigated a “manhunt” when Failon left for the hospital.

In a country where Lady Justice keeps one eye open, the question then is this: if it can happen to Ted Failon, it can happen to us. If Ted Failon pulled the trigger of the gun that cost Trina Etong her life, then this would be a case where the country would side with a murderer because they would believe him more than the police.

* * *

Email: pat.evangelista@gmail.com