Target ’em
NO, SAYS Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, government is not targeting the previous administration. Government is merely gathering evidence on corruption and letting the ax fall where it may.
He denied that the filing of a tax evasion case against Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo shows a campaign against GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo). “We’re just looking at the landmines that were left behind. We’re not targeting any specific person. The President himself has said that even if they are with the opposition, we should give them due process. The best measure of good government is to give your enemy due process and fairness.”
I don’t get it. What in God’s name is so wrong, or so hard, about saying:
“But of course we’re targeting the previous administration. It was a government that was dedicated to corruption. It was a government that added whole new dimensions to corruption. It was a government that was next in corruption only to the martial law one.
“The evidence against GMA and her family is far huger than the mountain of trash in Payatas. It has to do not just with the corruption of despoiling or plundering, it has to do with the corruption of spoiling or poisoning. It has to do not just with stealing the country’s money, it has to do with stealing the people’s vote, the people’s lives, the people’s freedom.
“But we have to begin somewhere. We have chosen to begin small. The filing of taxes against Mikey Arroyo is just the beginning. It is just the first step in a journey of a thousand miles. It is just the first blow in the fight for justice. But do not fear, the rest will come on the heels of this. Justice will come, retribution will come. As surely as day follows night.”
Why the coyness? This isn’t the first time government has been asked whether it has been singling out the Arroyos for prosecution or persecution (depending on who’s asking the question). And Aquino’s representatives, if not Aquino himself, have repeatedly answered in this way. What’s wrong with saying, “Yes, we’re after GMA, we want to make her pay for her crimes?”
Of course you have the Arroyos themselves crying foul. “Political harassment,” cries Mikey Arroyo, who adds that he wasn’t given due process, he was just made aware of his forgetfulness a couple of days before the BIR filed a tax evasion case before him. Selective perception, says Miguel Zubiri, who adds that government has also filed a case against Prospero Pichay, a well-known GMA supporter.
Naturally, Mikey and the other Arroyos will cry harassment and persecution. That’s what the Marcoses and their cronies cried too when the PCGG tried to recover the loot they spirited away. Cory stood her ground then, and rightly so, her countrymen, who had just dismantled the rolls of barbed wire strung up across Malacañang, being fully aware of the difference between revenge and justice, vindictiveness and zeal, oppression and conviction. Though I doubt the country would have greatly minded if Cory’s government had been a little bit more vengeful, vindictive and oppressive against the Marcoses, which would have indicated fury and passion, the kind the Jews have shown before the wreakers of the Holocaust. Some things ought never to be forgotten. Some things ought never to be forgiven.
It was so then, it is so now.
Zubiri may at least know that if government is singling out GMA and her allies, past or present, for prosecution or persecution, he won’t be hounded for stealing money, he will be hounded for—like his favorite president—stealing his seat. But I’ll leave the Pimentels to press that point.
Of course too there’s the argument that government would reveal its hand, or telegraph its punches, if it said that it was targeting the Arroyos in its fight against corruption. Which would put them on guard, which would allow them to prepare their legal defenses, which would force them to fight back like cornered rats.
Well, whether government says that or not, the Arroyos will be preparing for it anyway. GMA did not last for nine years being naïve. She knows any serious anti-corruption campaign, as abundantly shown by the impeachment of Merceditas Gutierrez, will get to her eventually. So there’s nothing to lose by telling the world government means to right wrongs, the wrongs of the past regime above all.
And there’s everything to gain.
The point of an anti-corruption campaign is not just to target the corrupt, it is to target the people. The first meaning to prosecute, to hound the corrupt to the ends of the earth, the second to instruct, to reach the people to the depths of their souls. The point is not just to convict the corrupt, it is to enlighten the public. It’s not just that educating the people in the true meaning, or horror, of corruption is the only way you can stop corruption in future, it is that it is the only way you can convict the corrupt today. You need look no further for proof of that than the Erap (Joseph Estrada) impeachment trial. The intention of the law can always be perverted, the will of the people cannot. In the end, it was the people, and not the courts, that judged Erap, and convicted him.
To say that, yes, government does mean to target GMA and everyone who helped her lie, cheat, steal and murder for the last nine years is to bring, draw, harness, conscript, enlist the people into the anti-corruption campaign. That is the only way it can succeed, with the aid, support and encouragement of the people. The true measure of good governance is not giving your enemy due process and fairness, it is giving the people due justice and restitution. The true measure of good governance is not giving your enemy the chance to defend himself, it is giving the people the chance to judge him. Or her.
Enough with being cute. Target ’em.
