Outrageous language

After the Office of the Ombudsman ordered him and 21 other Makati officials suspended for six months in connection with irregularities in the construction of Makati City Hall Building II, Mayor Junjun Binay chose to dig in. While his supporters massed around City Hall, he displayed to the media the sleeping paraphernalia he had brought in so he could ride out the suspension order holed up in the mayor’s office.

So far, so… predictable. Binay’s refusal to respect the Ombudsman’s order is not the first time an elected official hereabouts has tried to defy the law; quite a few have had to be bodily carried out of their offices in their desperate attempt to remain in power, debasing themselves in the process. Given his arrogant contempt for the order, it would be a just comeuppance for the young man to be in the same circumstances, if only to prove that the law comes down just as hard on recalcitrant mayors of far-flung towns as it does on the chief executive of the Philippines’ ritziest city.

But then this is Junjun Binay, the only son of Vice President Jejomar Binay, scion of one of the Philippines’ most politically powerful families at present—and that means the stakes are higher, the possibilities graver. On the second day of his self-imposed “staycation” at City Hall, the camp of his father warned the Department of Interior and Local Government, which happens to be led by the father’s longtime political rival Mar Roxas, that a “misencounter” might happen if the DILG rushed the implementation of the suspension order.

Never mind the patent irregularity of the Vice President’s office inserting itself into a matter it has absolutely no business meddling in; the Office of the Ombudsman, after all, derives its authority to crack the whip on erring officials from the Constitution itself. Note only the outrageous way with which the Binay camp has referenced the Jan. 25 Mamasapano bloodbath by using it as a punch line not only to score cheap points against Roxas (who had originally used the term “misencounter” to describe the incident) but, more critically, to deflect attention from the brazen law-breaking that Mayor Binay is committing by his refusal to abide by the Ombudsman’s order.

More ominous is the threat of violence suggested in that statement. The Mamasapano “misencounter” left 44 police commandos, 18 rebels and at least five civilians dead; it is abysmal politics for the Binay camp to foist that scenario on the government and the country, to foment a possible clash between public officials tasked to enforce the law and ordinary Makati citizens who would be used as cannon fodder simply to save a mayor who is being relieved of his duties for a grand total of six months.

The Binays’ hubris, in thinking they are above the law, should be seen as a harbinger of the kind of governance the VP will bring to the country if his dream of becoming president comes to fruition. The damage to the Office of the Ombudsman’s standing, as well as to the government’s ability to demand adherence to the law in general, cannot be overemphasized with this standoff going unresolved for long and Mayor Binay allowed his petulant way in his fiefdom, immune from reprimand or oversight.

Where are the statesmen when you need them? Where are the sober leaders that would tell the likes of Junjun Binay that the higher demands of statesmanship and patriotism require him to submit to the law and be an exemplar to his constituents? Then again, he seems to be of a piece with a much-diminished political landscape that sees President Aquino, for example, inflicting even more damage to the institution of the presidency by resorting to unbecoming language every time he opens his mouth on Mamasapano. The shrinking of a man was how his disaffected former ally Walden Bello called it.

In this sense, the mayor and the President are two prime specimens of a political culture that has gone to seed, where one can exploit an unfortunate loss of lives for his own selfish ends, while the other is unable to express remorse, or even words of dignity and grace that would honor not only the sacrifice of the dead but also the majesty of his office.

Words are just words? Not when they matter to the life and death of our hapless republic.