EDITORIAL - One sad tale of our times

When the Sandiganbayan convicted Cebu City prosecutor Rosendo Brillantes and sentenced him to up to 18 years in prison for the loss of 248 grams of shabu that were supposed to be in his custody, a lot more will weigh on his shoulders than just his impending loss of freedom.

Brillantes will forever be haunted by the irony that while he could spend many years in prison, that is if his expected appeal does not reverse his misfortune, the drug suspect from whom the shabu was taken is now scot free, having been acquitted by the court.

Brillantes also did not originally handle the case. It merely fell into his lap when the original prosecutor went into sick leave. He will never escape the notion that the fates appear to have deliberately sought him out for perdition.

Then there is the fact that while the Sandiganbayan decision did not impute anything malicious in the loss of the shabu other than that it got lost while in his custody, Brillantes cannot insulate himself from malicious imputations in the public mind.

Brillantes reportedly lives a simple life, sometimes electing to commute by jeep. His car would be an insult to the lifestyles of other government employees we know, including low-level police officers.

In his 60s, Brillantes is approaching retirement. Now, his retirement will not be a slow and splendid ride into the sunset. It will be an agonizing trek toward the burning sun of ignominy.

His is a sad tale that cannot but move people in a variety of ways, the most prevalent of which could be toward commiseration and pity. This should not have been how a life and a career should end.

There are painful lessons to be learned here, though, which even Brillantes himself may admit. The most prominent of them would be that absence of malice is never enough, especially on matters that require fidelity in the custody of a case that affects the lives of people.