Injustice of justice

 Without disclosing the slightest trace of evidence, Leila de Lima, who is supposed to be the secretary of justice, went to town with the announcement that she is near to uncovering the identity of the "mystery man" behind the multi-million-peso Malampaya fund scam.

 Claiming details from still unreleased depositions by Ruby Tuason, the recently surfaced new witness in the corollary Janet Napoles pork barrel scam, de Lima pointed to a lawyer who happened to once lawyer for the former first gentleman, and promptly insinuated where the money could have landed.

 If de Lima thinks the money was stolen by former president Gloria Arroyo or her husband, I have no problem with that. That is the lookout of the Arroyos. And if indeed they stole the money, then they should be made to pay for the crime.

 But de Lima cannot just go on shooting from the hip without evidence, more so since she is the justice secretary, who should be the epitome of due process and fair play. She cannot just say anything in a press conference and remain oblivious to the consequences of what she says.

 Just because many Filipinos are convinced that the Arroyos were at the center of a corrupt universe doesn't mean anyone can say anything against them with impunity, least of all a justice secretary who ought to be a paragon of prudence instead a salesman for miscarriage of justice.

 It has been years since de Lima bulldozed Arroyo into jail (at the time she was stopped at the airport, she was free of any legal incumbrances to leave, her arrest warrant coming much later after her arrest, issued by an obscure judge in just six hours and who has since been promoted) but no charges have stuck.

 If Filipinos are so sure about how they regard Arroyo, nothing would please them more and vindicate them better than justice acquired by fair, decent, and unassailable means. But even a most reviled Arroyo hung by improper means in a clear miscarriage of justice will someday come back to haunt us.

 Why is de Lima so eager to convict the enemies of her boss in a trial by publicity when all the judicial institutions in this country are open and free to try them as quickly as their skills can muster and their evidence can prove and sustain?

 More importantly, why is no one stopping her, or at least question the processes by which she seeks to engage these enemies? Has this country sunk so low in its integrity that it no longer has the strength to lift even a finger to point out the obvious mistakes being made in the name of justice?

 We have all been through this before. When this nation rose to depose a dictator, no other nation could match the heights of pride to which the Filipinos soared. Not even America, which bought its freedom at huge cost in the blood of its patriots, could match the bloodless revolution with which we bought ours.

 But all that fell through when we failed to strengthen our institutions and instead continued to undermine them with the hooliganism of the powerful and the entrenched. Power continued to be wielded for its own sake and never for the betterment of each individual life.

 Just look at the pork barrel scam. Instead of speeding it through the justice mill, it has instead made a detour through Congress where it got paraded in Senate inquiry after inquiry, with intermissions provided by senators themselves in unwarranted and shameful privilege speeches.

 Justice will never be attained if this is the route we continue to take -- this hauling of suspects through trials by publicity. The only means that can be served by this is political, which frankly is perhaps what this whole thing is all about.

 In a land of 100 million people, you would think that there would be a hundred million different stories to tell, each worthy of the ear of our leaders. But no, of the 100 million, we are fixated only on how to skewer your enemies by whatever means. And guess what? We get skewered too, but do not know any better.