EDITORIAL - "He said-she said" is never enough

Those who expected Michael Ray Aquino to sing had better perish the thought. Aquino is no fool. And with government not having the goods on him in connection with the Dacer-Corbito double murder case, the choices up for the former police officer are a walk in the park.

It would have been different if Aquino were in a legal bind, then he would likely choose the path of personal survival, even if it meant having to rat on his former bosses like Panfilo Lacson and Joseph Estrada, both also implicated in the case.

But all that the government has on Aquino are testimonial in nature, in effect reducing the case to a “he said-she said” case. There is none of the hard forensic evidence that is the stuff of which great case are made, and eventually solved. 

In a CSI-steeped society responsible for the phenomenal popularity of such tv series as NCIS, Criminal Minds, and even Monk, the conduct of the Dacer-Corbito double murder case is a big letdown. If it is a movie, it is not worth the cheap pirated DVD copy on which it is burned.

But the Dacer-Corbito case is not the only criminal investigation in this country that runs solely on the “he said-he said” line. In fact all criminal investigations in the Philippines appear to have unofficially adopted that line. 

One example is right here in Cebu — the Ella Joy Pique abduction-murder case. From the first set of suspects to the next, the case bumbles along, and not surprisingly so. After all, what can anyone expect of an investigation that relies solely on word of mouth. 

Not that word of mouth is not enough to convict. But that happens only when there is direct and positive testimony strong enough to survive the trap of proof beyond reasonable doubt. In that light, there is still nothing better and more expeditious than hard forensic evidence. 

Forensic evidence puts people, places and things on the spot, where they exactly were when the crime happened when it happened, and how it happened. They are much stronger than words whose strength and reliability depend on the credibility of the one speaking them. 

So, unless cases gain more weight from hard evidence, crimes in this country that depend almost exclusively on the spoken word to successfully prosecute will continue to be stacked in favor of the perpetrators. And that is truly a sad commentary on our national life.