What did you expect?

Four generals who have been implicated in the highly controversial "Hello Garci" tapes have been cleared. The news did not hit Filipinos at all with any surprise. It was expected, the way Filipinos have come to expect the uncertainty from which may come their daily bread.

Of course the generals were cleared. They had to. Their clearances was more acceptable than the turmoil that was likely to descend had they been found otherwise. The wisdom of those who cleared them may have been tainted, but it was a wisdom for the greater good.

To find them involved in the "Hello Garci" controversy is to expose a soft underbelly that is open to all sorts of assaults. Not that the controversy is to be condoned, but at this stage, clearing them was the path of least resistance for all.

Even if we have to go beyond the generals and dwell on the principal herself, which is President Arroyo, who comes under the glare of suspicion that she rigged the 2004 polls with their help, it is too late in the day to punish a poll fraud suspect.

Up to this day I am unconvinced that Arroyo cheated, or at least cheated substantially as to drastically alter the results of the 2004 election. My conviction stems from my belief that Filipinos, in the end, will eventually use their heads when their very future is at stake.

In 2004, Arroyo was the administration candidate. That means tremendous resources were at her disposal. On a personal level, she was perhaps more qualified that the rest of the playing field.

And what was the playing field? It was made up of an opposition slate broken up into several uncompromising factions. The failure of the opposition to unite, more than any disadvantage in material resources, proved to be the nail that sealed its coffin.

Then there is the factor that I continue to believe in, that eventually, in a pinch, the Filipino would go to what he thinks is best, not what he feels could be better. The choices in 2004, to an unimpassioned intelligent voter, clearly favored Arroyo.

But let us put our feet on the ground. In this country of patronage politics and feudal interests, it is virtually impossible to rule out cheating. No, let us not use that too constricted word and use manipulation instead.

In this country, anyone who can be manipulated gets manipulated during election time. Manipulation can come in the form of tampering with results, buying of votes, or actual use of violence.

Such manipulation is resorted to by everyone. Anyone who professes not to have engaged even in the least obnoxious of all - vote buying - must be a saint and has no business dipping his or her fingers into dirty politics.

In other words, anybody who decides to play the inherently dirty game of politics has come to a personal decision to abide by its dirty rules. Nobody who plays the game comes away unaffected and immaculate.

So, if everybody who plays the game is stained, how come the cannons seem to be trained on Arroyo alone. The answer to that one is rooted deeply in Filipino humor. She was, as the suspicion goes, the only one who got caught.

And that is precisely why we cannot allow Arroyo to be punished while the same vultures cheer with impunity in the sidelines. If we have to do any correcting of the system, we need to go back farther to the beginning, not change horses in midstream.

Arroyo, however deeply she may sink in guilt, cannot be made the sole scapegoat of a rotten system that bears the handprints of everyone who dared play the game. If we do that, we only change a piece but do not clear out the board.