EDITORIAL - Everybody is a saint but Arroyo

The trouble with being tried before the bar of public opinion is that while one can be convicted on the strength of mere perception, often the penalty sought is that which can only be dispensed after due process and through established legal institutions.

Moreover, in a trial before the bar of public opinion, everybody becomes a champion of morality, each one quick and generous to serve unsolicited helpings of moral authority. With so many moralists around, one wonders why this country is in fact going to the dogs.

Be that as it may, that is the environment the hapless President Arroyo suddenly finds herself in. In the eyes of her own people, as well as by her own admission, she has committed a great impropriety that has caused irreparable damage to her capacity to govern.

To be sure, based on the tapes alone that caught her conversing with an election official during the election period, it would be hard to pin Arroyo down legally. The tapes themselves were illegally secured through wiretapping and nothing in them had been incriminating.

But the capacity to govern is not derived solely from a legal mandate which, despite what those who wave the tape are claiming, many level-headed and open-minded citizens of this country continue to believe she earned.

A lot of governance has to do with, yes, moral authority. Indeed, more than a mandate, it is moral authority that provides any leadership the real strength that is required for anyone to govern effectively.

The trouble is that, in matters pertaining to morality, we are inevitably wrenched back to our original dilemma, which is that everybody suddenly seems to be the moral authority, that is, everybody but Arroyo.

Just look around and see who have suddenly become unassailable authorities on morality - an ousted president charged with plunder, a former police officer linked to summary killings, a Marcos loyalist, a suspected fund diverter, a bishop accused of sexual impropriety.

We are not asking that Arroyo be spared. She said she is taking full responsibility for her actions, so let the chips fall where they may. We are just aghast by all the moralizing and pontificating, as if we are in heaven when in fact we have never left hell.