Cheap joys and hollow triumphs

I find it pathetically amusing that presidential  spokesman Sonny Coloma can derive great pleasure in announcing the overwhelmingly negative reaction Filipinos had to the "farewell" speech of Senator Bong Revilla at the Senate last Monday.

Did Coloma really expect otherwise? But of course the reactions can only be negative. Filipinos, after all, feel nothing but contempt for those who now stand accused of involvement in the multi-billion-peso pork barrel scam.

On the other hand, in the off chance there are a few who might agree with Revilla that he is more of a victim than a perpetrator, certainly you cannot expect them to surface and risk getting pilloried along with the rest of the suspects.

In other words, the negative reaction was a given. It wasn't the product of some great exercise of skill, talent or planning. It came as a matter of course. For Coloma to not actually see it coming, and then to feel ecstatic when it did come, only shows the mediocrity of expectations of this government.

Come to think of it, it was Revilla who brought the negative feedback upon himself. If I were Revilla, I would just shut up and await what fate has in store for me. I would not tempt fate by giving a speech that, no matter how skillfully delivered, will never suffice to substitute the facts.

And those facts can only be ascertained at the proper forum, which is the courts. Cases have already been filed in court against Revilla and his fellow senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada, as well as the woman in the center of it all, Janet Napoles. Revilla should just have waited for his day in court.

Whoever his handlers are made a big mistake of allowing him to even show his head. There is nothing Revilla can say that he has not said already. And there is nothing he has said already that Filipinos are still willing to believe.

For Coloma to take issue with a crippled speech and then feel triumphant when Filipinos tore it to pieces exposes how this administration is now rummaging through the bottom of the barrel for some elusive happiness.

When the rains come to end summer, there is great relief but no great triumph, for it is only nature taking its normal course. But when it rains because someone threw silver iodide into the clouds, there is real triumph there, of science outwitting nature. Coloma may thus salute cloud seeding but not the wet season.

If Coloma wants to argue the government position, he should learn which points to take on and which to leave alone. Take for instance the claim of selective justice being made by the accused. They claim that they are being singled out and persecuted because they are members of the opposition.

Nobody in government, Coloma included, has succeeded in finding a way to effectively answer the claim. And that is because they took the issue in its entirety and did not break it apart into more manageable pieces. More importantly, they did not accept the fact that there are pieces they can defend and others they cannot.

On the matter of persecution, the claim of Revilla et al can immediately fall flat on its face. All Coloma and the other spokesmen have to say is that it is not as if the pork barrel scam was just a figment of the imagination. The scam is real. It was not plucked from thin air. The charges have basis.

Persecution happens only when you go after a person for no reason. Revilla et al cannot cry persecution because there is basis to prosecute them. As to their being singled out, however, that is an indefensible position the government finds itself in. For in truth and in fact, only Revilla et al have been charged so far.

So, for as long as government fails to charge others except members of the opposition, the claim of selective justice, of being singled out, will always stick. And it can only stick some more in face of the knowledge that some members of the administration have in fact been implicated in the scam.

What Coloma and his team must do, therefore, is pick their battles. Better yet, they should avoid picking petty fights altogether. Presidential spokesmen are the number one p.r. practitioners in the country and must conduct themselves accordingly. Picking fights from Malacañang is cheap and suggests bankruptcy.