Let him cast the first stone

I am not the religious man that columnist Bobit Avila is and I do not read the bible as he does. So when Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in one of her combative statements, challenged the opposition with a biblical quote like "let him who is innocent cast the first stone" I thought I read Mr. Avila's write-up in an untimely Holy Week. I normally hear this line in the Christian celebration of Lent.

My vague idea of this quote brings me to a situation where a woman, perceived by many as a prostitute, was about to be lynched. In her defense, Jesus Christ, asked those poised to inflict the mortal punishment to cast the stone if they themselves were innocent, and therefore, without sin. And because all in the mob were sinners, the woman not apparently excluded, no stone was cast.

In brief, let's look back. There was Atty. Sam Ong's exposé of an alleged wire-tapped tape recording which eventually became known as the "Hello Garci tapes". After a long period of eerie silence, President Arroyo finally admitted, on television, with a face made up for show and a matching slow speech rate which indicated guilt, that she talked with Comelec Commissioner Garcillano. She said she was sorry. Following the president's televised public apology, various sectors, the opposition primarily, upped the ante. Emboldened by the president's confession, they denounced her for allegedly having given the instruction for the commission of electoral fraud. As the attacks mounted with increasing severity, it was then that Pres. Arroyo asked that only the innocent among her detractors cast the first stone.

The analogy used by President Arroyo, although, in all probability, totally unintended by the palace propaganda geniuses, demolished my remaining notion of her capability to lead our country. Her dare reverberated with far reaching implications. Unfortunately, she had what is known as a "Fruedian slip". Defined in the dictionary as "a slip of the tongue motivated by and reveals some unconscious aspect of the mind", the president's bravado instead indubitably showed a pattern of her less honest administration.

Implicit in the insinuation of President Arroyo is that all of those who accused her of political fraud are political cheats themselves. To her, there is no political saint among her detractors. That is why she made the challenge for the innocent, and only for the innocent, to come forward. She is almost cocksure that there is no sinless person within the panorama of Philippine politics. They, like her, belong to the same league of political sinners and so, because no kettle can call the others black, she entertains the belief that her dare can thump the political onslaught and help her weather her crises.

But, read, again! The president, by so making the dare, in effect admits that she too, has unclean hands. She, not unlike the opposition, is not sinless. In her biblical analogy, she is comparing herself to Mary Magdalene, sadly missing the point that Magdalene's sins almost caused the public to lynch her. In other words, instead of calming down the apprehensions of her people, her words aggravate her tenuous position.

What the president is not yet saying is the kind of sins, she has, thus far, committed. But, since the very issue to which she has spurted the biblical quote is all about electoral fraud, to put her among the players of election cheaters is not difficult to assume. What was once, to me, a yet unsubstantiated, though plausible, accusation of the president's cheating in the 2004 elections, now, no thanks to her implicit admission that as Mary Magdalene, she, as those in the opposition are, is unclean, takes a stronger form.

A portion of President Arroyo's pronouncement horrified me even more. As if anticipating that no innocent politician could hurl the first stone, she asked them to join her ranks. She probably meant that the opposition should just remain silent and keep their misdeeds secret. I could not escape a dire conclusion. I took it to mean that her offer was for sinners to join a fellow sinner. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. Is that it?

If the president's call for those who are not innocent to join her, who, by her own biblical analogy, is also not innocent, then, we shall have government leaders who are all sinners. I'm sure this is not intended although it to a certain extent, is inescapable. Anyway, it is my hope that, I am, indeed, wrong and should therefore not cast the first stone.