Those leaks from Malacañang

A news website printed a story on a supposed “private and confidential memorandum” sent by Vice President Jejomar Binay to President Aquino in January 2011, or more than a year ago.

In the confidential memorandum, Binay was supposed to have given legal advice to the President on how the government should proceed with its case against former AFP comptroller Carlos F. Garcia to ensure a conviction. The website even showed an actual copy of the private and confidential memo.

In summary, the Vice President was advising the President that he feared that the case against Gacia for plunder would be dismissed if the only key evidence was the statement made by Garcia’s wife that her husband received cash from military suppliers and contractors.

As a former trial lawyer, Binay was approaching it from a purely legal point of view. As he predicted, the Sandiganbayan eventually dismissed the plunder case for insufficiency of evidence, proving that Binay’s instinct was correct.

Binay’s camp has been protesting about the leak, describing it as part of a continuing smear campaign against the Vice President and an attempt to sabotage the “good personal and working relationship” between him and the President.

Binay is a politician. He knows that mudslinging comes with the teritory, and Binay is no stranger to this. He need not state the obvious that this is politically motivated. He should have seen it coming because of his early declaration of his plan to run for president in 2016. But his camp does make a point when it says that this is an attempt to smear Binay, and some “personalities and groups” may be compromising sensitive government information.

What I find troublesome in this affair is the timing of the leak of his confidential memorandum to the President. The memorandum was written in January 2011. Yet, whoever leaked it—yes, someone with access to confidential documents had to be behind the leak—chose to do so at a time when Binay has become very visible owing to the creation of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA)—his 2012 alliance with former President Estrada—and the frequent photographs and video clips of him and the President together, which signals that all is well between the two.

Leaks are nothing new, especially at the highest levels of government. Leaks serve several purposes. It can be used as a trial balloon for policies to test whether a policy that is being formulated would be accepted by the target sectors.

On a more Machiavellian level, leaks are resorted to by one faction to put a rival group in bad light. It is a weapon for turf wars. But the leak of Binay’s confidential memorandum to the President is more than an offshoot of a turf war. It is the opening salvo of a political war, with the presidency in 2016 as the prize. But the first casualty of this war is the confidentiality of certain government documents and, by extension, sensitive government interests. Today it is Binay’s confidential memorandum, tomorrow it could be sensitive information that can jeopardize the country’s security.

In their eagerness to taint Binay as someone who is not fully behind the President’s campaign against corruption, those who orchestrated the leak have shown themselves to be petty and amateurish. Worse, they have exposed themselves as partisans with little regard to the security of confidential documents and even the security of the country.

Confidentiality of certain government documents is essential in providing the President inputs for decision-making. In a democracy, the free exchange of ideas is important between the President and his advisers and Cabinet members. At the end of the day, it is the President who will make the decision. But it is the responsibility of his team to provide him with all the options, not just to tailor-fit their advice to a decision that has already been made. Confidentiality is essential to allow for this exchange of opinion and ideas at the highest level of government.

This whole sorry episode tends to show that a limited group with a partisan agenda can endanger the very security of the Aquino administration. Imagine how many confidential documents are fielded by Malacañang and sent to the President every day. How certain are we that these documents are secure and have not fallen into the hands of vested interest groups or even of foreign governments? How many of these confidential memos came from Binay? Are they secure, or is there a special box in some office somewhere in Malacañang where copies of Binay’s confidential memos are stored, to be leaked to media whenever the Vice President needs to be given a figurative public flogging?

The President should stop these leaks. He needs to show that he is in control. He should tell all the factions in the Palace—both Balay and Samar—to start acting like responsible adults and get over the 2010 elections. The President has only four more years to fulfill his promise. The bickering should stop, lest it escalates into an open war, with one side using leaked confidential documents as ammunition.