The pots and the kettles

Janet Lim Napoles, the alleged brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam (assertions by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago notwithstanding), has joined the ranks of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former chief justice Renato Corona as having been convicted in media first prior to being so in the courts.

To this day, Arroyo has not been found guilty by any court. Yet long before she was even arrested, in one of the most blatant and scandalous displays of state power coopting the courts, Arroyo was already guilty in the eyes of a Filipino nation that prides itself as the bastion of democracy in Asia.

This same Filipino nation turned a blind eye to the shameful bulldozing by the state of Corona's basic rights to innocence, then never felt any remorse when it was later exposed that his eventual conviction may have been bought by multi-million bribes.

To be sure, Arroyo and Corona could be as guilty as hell. But it is a guilt rendered suspect by the fact that they were never allowed to enjoy for a moment their constitutionally guaranteed right to presumption of innocence.

From the very first moment they were tagged as enemies of Noynoy Aquino, both Arroyo and Corona never stood a chance of getting a fair shake in Asia's supposedly only true democracy. When Noynoy declared both of them as his enemies, his government stopped at nothing, not even for shame, to persecute them.

And now Napoles has joined this godforsaken club of godforsaken souls convicted before trial. In so doing, she has expanded the number of sins this country has committed against itself. We are rapidly becoming a country of contradictions without our even knowing it.

Look at us. We have a government that no other self-respecting government in the world would even try to emulate, like officially trying to raise money to spring a convicted Filipino murderer found guilty in accordance with the sovereign laws of another land. We do not feel shame to even ask the help of that land.

Yet when another sovereign land demands an apology for the deaths of its citizens as a result of official mishandling of a hostage situation, we balk at apologizing, feeling it beneath our dignity to do so when all the rest of the civilized world sees an apology as an act of good manners and a decent thing to do.

How can this country try to officially and openly spring a convicted murderer yet similarly refuse to officially and openly accord another citizen in his or her own country the simple and basic right to presumption of innocence and due process?

Does a killer duly convicted in a foreign land in accordance with its sovereign laws, and thus put us to shame before the world, have better and greater rights than suspects right here in our own land who have not even been properly investigated, much less convicted?

Clearly the laws in the Philippines are not what they are supposed to be and can be manipulated to suit the dictates of whoever holds the strings of authority. Can you imagine Napoles being summoned to the Senate and there get branded as a thief when the only charge she faces so far is illegal detention?

Again, Arroyo, Corona and Napoles may be as guilty as hell. But let that be determined first as a proper trial and at the proper courts. Only then can their guilt be pronounced beyond reasonable doubt. Look at her accusers who are just as guilty as her. They smile from ear to ear and nobody even feels like puking.

Many people are angry at Napoles and her co-conspirators in the pork barrel scam. The theft of billions makes them rightly so. But wait, didn't these very same people turn the other check when the pork barrel still benefitted them one way or the other? Or do we have to play the pretending game of knowing pork only now.

There is so much hypocrisy involved in all of these cases, and in many other cases involving politics in the Philippines, including that which provokes righteous indignation over stolen taxes by those who do not even pay them, or worse, cheat on them while maintaining their dignified positions in society. What hypocrites.