If only Noynoy Aquino had been a sincere person, he could by now honestly claim victory as a result of charges being filed in court against three senators and the alleged mastermind in the P10 billion pork barrel scam.
But because he is not a sincere person, any victory he claims now will always ring hollow in light of the fact that he has made sure none of his friends implicated in the same scam would suffer the same fate as his political enemies.
If there is anyone who can claim victory for charging senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, along with supposed brains Janet Napoles and several others before the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court, it is none other than the Filipino people themselves.
The Filipino people are victorious because they kept faith in the system despite the many times that no less than Noynoy himself tried to rape it to ensure the results would be to his liking. Had the Filipino people not learned their lessons well, God knows if we would not be seeing more Edsas by now.
Not only is Noynoy insincere, he is shameless as well for trying to claim credit for the successful removal of Renato Corona as chief justice of the Philippines when, as the nation only learned recently, he in fact bought the votes of certain senators to ensure that they vote to convict in the impeachment trial.
What a shame that what seemed at first to be a historic moment in the country's attempt to do the right thing for itself should turn out to be just another example of how easily the right thing can be corrupted. Not only was the vote to convict tainted, but so was the gathering and presentation of evidence.
If it is only possible to puke on hindsight, I would. For it roils my innards to now recall how those who once aggressively pursued Corona as if they were paragons of good and moral uprightness would themselves turn out to be among those implicated in the pork barrel scam of Napoles.
And yet while these rah-rah boys and attack dogs of Noynoy have been clearly identified, some of them even in the same official reports that formed the basis for charging the three senators, none of them have been charged to this date.
And not only have these rah-rah boys and attack dogs of Noynoy not been charged, but Noynoy himself has come forward to tell the Filipino nation how completely he continues to trust them. And because there is no ambiguity in what Noynoy wants, that is exactly what he is going to get.
There is no problem about getting the stars of corruption hung and twisting in the wind. The Filipino people who have perpetually been robbed witless of their lives deserve nothing less than to bask and revel in the come-uppance of evil-doers.
The problem arises when it comes time for credit-grabbing. Please let the small people who did the nitty-gritty work of sewing up the cases take the credit, even if only anonymously, or perhaps in the privacy of the dining table and among family.
But never, please never, let Noynoy take credit for bringing the scammers to justice. Allowing him to escape with the honor is no different from congratulating him for killing a pesky rat despite knowing fully well that he had to burn the house down just to do so.
Noynoy cannot order the Filipino people to feel good about themselves in the aftermath of the charging of Napoles and the three senators if he continues to protect and vouch for his friends who have similarly been implicated in the very same scam.
Corruption in the Philippines is not a simple matter of a few men. It is systemic. You cannot win the fight by jailing a few men you do not like and then strengthening the corruption in the system by sparing those that you do. Corruption is not just about stealing money. More importantly, it is about twisting values.