‘Politics’ it may be, but so what?

These past few years, we have caught glimpses of the “estate” that lies across Aguinaldo Highway in Alfonso, Cavite, just in front of the gate of the subdivision where we built our weekend retreat.

Even as construction of our home was ongoing, people were telling us that the grouping of a large white structure and some huts was the weekend home of the Binays—then Makati mayor and now Vice President Jejomar Binay. Some years later, an Alfonso-based friend informed us that the Binays were transforming the property into a B&B, a bed-and-breakfast which was then all the rage in Tagaytay and environs. This was when we observed the “rest house” sprawling out to adjacent lots, with new buildings going up and, so we were told, a beautiful garden with magnificent views since the property lies on the side facing the ridge, with its expansive vista of Taal Lake.

In the light of news surfacing about the various properties owned by the Binays, reports have come out that the spread in Alfonso had been sold, as with the “farm” in Batangas that, when it finally surfaced in a Senate subcommittee hearing, was already old news. I remember many years back a feature in a defunct magazine published by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) on the same Batangas property. The report also detailed, much as Binay critic former vice mayor Ernesto Mercado did during his slide show, how townsfolk readily gave directions to the “Binay farm.” The article was even accompanied by a photo of the farm’s huge metal gate manned at the time by security personnel. I must confess, though, that Mercado’s slide show was the first time I even glimpsed the “royal” garden maze that sprawled one mansion in the farm.

Still, no investigation ensued after the release of the article, and despite some commentary, the farm sank back to obscurity until its appearance in the Senate.

“Hacienda Binay,” said the Vice President’s spokesman, has already been taken over by a corporation which allegedly uses the estate as a tourist attraction. If so, let me buy tickets to this destination, Asap!

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Still, Binay is right when he blames all the scrutiny to “politics.” Indeed, if he hadn’t been so eager to announce his plans to run for president in 2016, I doubt if anybody would be paying attention to such high-profile projects as the Makati City Hall parking building and the Ospital ng Makati.

To be fair, while the parking building and the city hospital are legitimate subjects for public audit and investigation, the show-and-tell on the Batangas farm and Alfonso property seems motivated by malice and personal pique. Mercado and the other Binay critics, including some of the senators looking into the issue, know that nothing stirs public envy and rancor like a glimpse of a public official enjoying a lifestyle way beyond his pay grade.

So while eyebrows were indeed raised at the thousands of pesos spent per toilet and bedpan in the Makati city buildings, the howls of disbelief and outrage were loudest after photos of the maze garden, the lagoon, the dozens of fighting cock pens and the air-conditioned piggery finally surfaced.

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So yes, politics is the prime motivation behind the exposé. But—so what?

Indeed, the Vice President has much to answer for. Whatever the motivation, the news of his “unexplained wealth” needs to be clarified. He is a public official, as are the other members of his family, and he owes the public an explanation for his wealth’s apparent mismatch with his salary as mayor and vice president for the last two decades or so.

Neither can he claim an income from other members of his family, many of them elected to public positions, and with little to show by way of independent income or inherited wealth.

He has said he is willing to “cooperate” with the belated investigation being launched by the Department of Justice, provided the probe is conducted objectively and far from the eye of the media. But why only now? And what was it about the hearings conducted by Senators Koko Pimentel, Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV that he found so offensive and objectionable? Binay has said he didn’t want to subject himself to a “trial by publicity.” But his reactions, through his spokesperson and stunts like the “no-questions” public defense, have likewise been conducted for the benefit of the media. So what we ended up with is a skewed view of the facts screened through the prisms of subjective opinion.

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In the movie “Gone Girl,” a tangential story line concerns the role of the media in presenting the “good vs bad” sides of a very public event—the disappearance of a married woman and the suspicions that fall on her husband.

The truth is that the media, while we strive toward objectivity and chase after “just the facts,” are also after stories that compel interest and offer a cogent narrative. And for this to happen, we need to choose sides, even if in choosing we end up filtering facts in favor of interpretation and characterization.

We need victims and villains, champions and chumps, the innocent and the guilty—even if the facts turn out contrary to our themes and suppositions.

Which brings us back to Binay’s estates and inexplicable wealth. As his dramatic personal story line demonstrates, he has neither inherited riches nor success in the private sector (he was a human rights lawyer, remember) to explain his current material status. We need a cogent, documented explanation to understand his and his family’s extraordinary stature. We can grant him and his family a luxurious lifestyle, but we need to know how they earned it.