EDITORIAL - Presumed guilty

Why do we get the feeling that bank cashier Acsa Ramirez could soon end up behind bars? Because the heat is on at the National Bureau of Investigation, and it has to be deflected. It was bad enough that Ramirez was presented to the press as a suspected criminal by no less than President Arroyo. Now NBI officials trying to save their necks are insisting that they did not goof, and that Ramirez could in fact be a suspect in a P205-million scam at the Land Bank of the Philippines.

Ramirez, according to the NBI, was invited to the bureau for questioning last week because she had been implicated by the principal accused in the scam, Artemio San Juan, manager of the Land Bank’s branch in Binangonan, Rizal. NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said Ramirez could be held liable for failure to alert authorities about a P26-billion check deposited in the bank — a violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law which requires a report on bank transactions involving at least P4 million.

On the other hand, Ramirez, backed by the Land Bank union, said she was in fact the principal witness in the scam, which has so far led to the suspension of three bank personnel. Ramirez was providing additional information to the NBI at the bureau’s main office in Manila when the President dropped by and the cashier was trotted out to the press as a suspect.

Suspect? Ramirez, at the time of that media presentation, had neither been arrested nor indicted for any crime. She was made to believe that her help was being sought by the NBI, and Land Bank president Margarito Teves said he was under the same impression.

Instead of trotting out a non-suspect to the press, why not present those personnel of the Department of Public Works and Highways implicated in a P150-million vehicle repair scam? Put the undersecretaries who have been suspended for 90 days in front of the cameras. At least there are formal complaints against those people. But then the administration treads carefully when the accused are public officials, prominent personalities or members of moneyed clans.

For an ordinary bank cashier like Acsa Ramirez, the government does not seem to worry about presuming her guilt. Now it is up to Ramirez to prove her innocence.