EDITORIAL — Search for truth

Impeachment will not lead to the truth, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said the other day. The common reaction to that was, so what will?

There are several paths to the truth, but there is no guarantee that the nation will find the answers to questions hounding the Arroyo administration. Controversial elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano has been back for several months, but lawmakers seem to have lost interest in forcing him to spill the beans on candidates who rang him up about their votes in the May 2004 elections. If lawmakers have no appetite to grill Garcillano, they will have even less appetite to impeach the President the second time around. Garcillano and others suspected of rigging the vote apart from the President can be brought to court. We see no movement in that direction.

The truth about the rot in the Commission on Elections can be uncovered if commissioners involved in the aborted P1.2-billion poll automation contract are impeached. We will see if lawmakers muster the will for this.

If you ask the administration, of course, it would rather forget whatever truth there is to uncover and move on. Prosecution of the President, if warranted, can wait until she finishes her term, as far as her supporters are concerned. Even then there is no guarantee that the truth will ever come out. We still do not know the full truth behind the assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr; not even the full powers of his widow’s presidency could unearth the truth. We may never know the truth behind the "Hello, Garci" tapes even when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is no longer in power.

But we can do something to correct the deficiencies that allow poll fraud. We can put in place measures to make public officials accountable for their acts. We can see to it that this crisis of legitimacy does not happen again.