EDITORIAL - Now you know

Hey wait. Why is everybody considering the case involving PCSO car donations to bishops closed? Is it because the bishops have apologized and returned the vehicles? Is it because the Senate has considered the donations legal?

But contriteness, we are told, does not extinguish a crime, if indeed a crime has been committed. Saying sorry is not enough to escape arrest if one gets caught shoplifting in a store. And the Senate is not a trial court and cannot, therefore, pass judgment on guilt or innocence.

Both parties, however, are only too happy to pretend closure to the case. Their faceoff at the Senate last Wednesday was a nightmare for both, even if nobody from either side is willing to admit it.

Nobody from either side anticipated how unpleasant it would be for both until it happened. The senators were not used to addressing anyone “Your Excellency.” The bishops were not used to addressing anyone “Your Honor.” And both titles lost all meaning in the issue at hand.

Senators may have grown callous dealing with hapless guests. But six bishops involved in the case are not exactly hapless, even if they have asked for forgiveness. And it was unsettling that behind the six sat other bishops and one cardinal, all staring at the senators in silence.

As to the bishops, it was a strange and unfamiliar territory to be herded together like sacristans awaiting a kura’s berating. So this was how politics feels from the other side of the fence. The experience should make bishops think again about wearing two hats.

It was no wonder then that for all the labors of the mountain, the only thing it brought forth was a mouse and everybody came away disappointed and none the wiser. Perhaps the two should not tangle ever again, at least not frontally, because nothing happens.

If there was anyone who walked out of the Senate hall smelling like a rose, it was Miriam Defensor Santiago. She came on first, delivered her goods in perfect sense, stormed out undamaged and left everyone else inside trying to pull each other’s legs. Now they know better.