MANILA, Philippines -- Take it to court! President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her sons, and every functionary in their employ say, over and over again, with feeling.

It was the same bravura displayed by then-President Joseph Estrada. He moved heaven and earth to prevent an impeachment. When that failed, he hired some of the country?s best lawyers and maneuvered to get his Senate allies to acquit him. He would have gotten away with it, too, if the public hadn?t been engaged in the entire process. When his allies set out to lay down the basis for an acquittal, they did so by means of a daring maneuver -- the suppression of the famous second envelope -- that was brilliant lawyering but abysmally crude politics. The public went out to the streets on the old principle that what is legal isn?t necessarily what?s right.

So the Palace prefers that the accusations be taken from the public arena, and cocooned in the courts. There, what Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite described as ?dilatory tactics? can be pursued more effectively than they have been, say, against the Senate. Meanwhile, as motions and countermotions and the tactical use of requests for delays and rescheduling are used, the administration can tidy up the messy question of too many people knowing too many things and potentially saying too much under oath.

The problem is that even white collar criminals sometimes end up having to engage in crude Mafia-style crimes, too. And so the brilliant Ferdinand Marcos and the street-smart Joseph Estrada both had administrations marked by the forced disappearances of people who knew too much: Primitivo Mijares, Marcos? former propagandist, and publicist Salvador ?Bubby Dacer? being among the most obvious examples. This was a potential fate that became too possible for comfort to someone like Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr.

And there are people who won?t lose sleep over feeding their subordinates to the sharks, if only to buy time. Observers of the Senate hearings will recall that lawyer Antonio Bautista seized every opportunity to mention the name of Benjamin Abalos. This is, to us, a sign that in the Palace?s calculations it?s better to keep attention focused on the once-useful chairman of the Commission on Elections rather than allow the Senate and the public to close in on the First Family. Abalos himself, we should recall, relinquished his office for the same reason Richard Nixon did: The public outcry was so strong, even a lapdog House of Representatives might have been forced to impeach him.

Aside from token declarations from the usual suspects -- such as Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza?s declaration that Abalos and the President?s husband are innocent when it comes to the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) scandal -- the administration has focused its resources on defending the First Family. Abalos has to rely on his own resources, and the security of a pocket fiefdom in Mandaluyong City, to maintain some sort of defense. The same can be said of former House Speaker Jose de Venecia, who is still a congressman and retains a shadow following in the party he helped establish, but which is in the process of being absorbed by the President?s pet party, Kampi. They can put up some sort of fight, because they have their own resources. But even those resources have been heavily hit, because of the Palace?s inclination to let them take the heat, and once they started causing trouble, to neutralize them, politically.

These two former allies of the President -- Abalos and De Venecia -- serve as a cautionary tale for someone like Commission on Higher Education Chairman Romulo Neri, who has no resources of his own to guarantee his own safety. This was proven when Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita blandly announced that troops had been sent to ?secure? Neri at the time he seemed poised to incriminate the President before the Senate. Neri began to backpedal and the whole thing surely served as a cautionary tale, too, for people close to Neri like Lozada. Faced with a similar situation, Lozada at least had the presence of mind to take himself out of police custody and started spilling the beans.

Neri must carefully consider whether or not the Palace will feed him to the sharks, too. It?s almost a certainty; it?s only a question of timing. In maintaining his silence, Neri is only postponing the inevitable.