A matter of lying

During a recent ANC forum featuring seven of eight presidential contenders, this question was posed to Noynoy Aquino: “Have you ever lied?” It was a question that senators like him would often pressure “guests” at their endless investigations to answer in a simple yes or no.

But Noynoy, obviously unprepared for such a straightforward question, could not reduce his answer to a plain yes or no. And so he spent the whole two minutes alloted for him to answer to explain why it was not possible for him to lie.

He invoked the name of his parents (can he ever stand on his own?) who he said brought him up to never tell a lie. After so many words, what Noynoy was really trying to say was that in all his 49 years he has never told a lie.

Had Noynoy chosen to just answer with a yes or a no, he would have sounded more convincing even if it is both morally and statistically improbable for someone not to have lied even once in a span of 49 years.

But by launching into a two-minute regimen of verbal calisthenics about not having ever lied, Noynoy only succeeded in making himself entirely unbelievable. When you launch a litany of so many words, you can only be trying to convince yourself more than you do your listeners.

Because the more unconvincing you are to your own self, the more you try with more words. And the more you try with more words, the more defensive you appear to be. If you cannot give a straightforward answer, you must be, well, lying.

Toward the end of his spiel, Noynoy must have realized he had spoken himself into a hole and so decided to admit having told a few little “white lies” of such innocuous nature, as when Cory would ask what time he came home the night before and he would just say “early.”

Of course the audience and televiewers did not expect Noynoy to admit telling incredibly bold and brazen lies. But neither did they expect him to project himself as a saint. More honest men can extricate themselves from such a predicament with a little more grace.

An example of that would be Joseph Estrada who, in the same forum, was asked what vice he could not give up. That he was asked the question clearly indicated where the public conviction lay. The public knew, and knew that Estrada knew, that he had a lot of vices.

The Vices of Estrada are a given, just as it is a given that, there being no saints among us, we all must have lied in our lives. But while Noynoy could not be honest with his human frailties, Estrada knew the question to be the provocation that it was, and so acted accordingly.

Estrada tried to bide time by pretending not to have heard the question clearly. The man, who must have lied a million times in his life, knew the situation called for an honest answer and anything less would grossly disappoint the audience and televiewers.

 So Estrada, almost winking, said the only vice he was not prepared to give up was the vice of lavish attention toward the poor. That brought the house down. He was lying, of course. But he was also telling the truth. He was keeping all his vices except the one that was not there.

On a broader perspective, it is unfair to judge Noynoy against Estrada on the basis of how they dealt with one single question. But then again, if a single question is all there is, then how a man answers that question can be insightful and revealing.

Estrada chose to be honest in a way that deflected the harm that the question intended to provoke or inflict on him. Noynoy, on the other hand, chose to perpetuate an image that, measured against reality and basic common sense, even the unschooled would readily see as untrue.

A more honest and believable answer from Noynoy would be: “Of course I have lied. I am only human. But never in a way that has placed a single person in jeopardy or the interest of the nation at stake.” But to say he never lied in his 49 years is, to say the least, very deflating.