EDITORIAL - Pyrrhic victory

Forget the mug shots! Why are we getting so hot about those mug shots of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo? It’s not as if we haven’t seen what she looks like, neck braces and all. Taking mug shots have their reasons, and publishing them must be one of them. So what gives?

Let us not get distracted by a non-issue. Let us focus instead on vigilance. Let us not allow the legal shortcuts resorted to by this administration in its desire to put Arroyo behind bars before Christmas lead to the total undermining and possible collapse of the rule of law.

The Aquinos and the Arroyos can fight all they want because, at the end of the day, they still will not suffer the consequences of their quarrel in the same way we innocent bystanders will suffer.

If worse comes to worst and there is a total breakdown of law and order, these people can always hie off to some safe haven. And while they cool their heels somewhere far away from home, it is we poor defenseless folk who are left behind to bear the brunt of their folly.

That is why it borders on the ridiculous how some people can actually split hairs over some mug shots leaked to the press. After all that Arroyo has gone through, and expected to go through some more, do you really think she gives a hoot about some mug shots in the papers?

Even before Arroyo got charged and arrested, it was already a sort of given that she will have to account for what she has been accused of doing. Long before opportunists plucked Aquino from obscurity at the death of her mother, calls were already mounting for Arroyo’s head.

In other words, it was only a matter of time before Arroyo would fall. Aquino need not have shaken the very foundations of democracy just to do so. But he foolishly did. At the cost of undermining the rule of law, Aquino’s getting Arroyo is nothing short of a Pyrrhic victory.

The worst legal precedents having been set, we now shudder to think how the Aquino example will be used next time, and for what and by whom. When madness ruled the day, Filipinos not only stood idly by, some even cheered. Now we wait to go full circle with bated breath.