EDITORIAL – With prosecutors like these, who needs priests?

In dismissing all charges against Catholic priest Benedicto Ejares, consisting of seven counts of acts of lasciviousness, child abuse and sexual harassment filed by several high school girls, the Cebu City prosecutor's office succeeded in one thing and one thing only: Prove it richly deserves the low esteem the public has for it.

When the dismissal was announced, along with the shabby logic upon which it precariously sat, everybody forgot about Ejares. With priests in growing numbers doing so much worse, who cares about a confused pipsqueak who could do no more than allegedly toy with bra strings, tickle forearms and touch the backs of girls in confession.

But they quickly seized on the decision of the prosecutors. Because if you are the second most important city in the country, and just days ago was named 4th globally as a choice business outsourcing destination owing to the quality of its employable workforce, you would expect your prosecutors to labor but not bring forth a mere mouse.

But they did, these wonderful specimens in the how-not-to-excel-in-your-profession lab. Their decision became an instant hit in the ho ho ha ha category of life's never-ending comedy. From offices to coffeeshops, inside taxicabs to the dining table, the hottest topic outside ZTE and Desperate Housewives was how Ejares walked free.

Consider the logic: " Putting his arms around their shoulders, touching their arms and backs and toying with their bra straps was just a matter of routine or habit. " One has to be brain dead to buy that, unless the logic sprung unbidden from their own routines and habits, in which case let us just ho ho and ha ha, then wink wink.

"We are not dealing here with an ordinary human being but with someone who is considered an alter ego of Jesus Christ," our clueless prosecutors insisted, swinging from leaf of the branch to fruit of the vine without the slightest idea of what they were doing and talking about.

"It would require an unreasonable overstretching of one's imagination to conclude that what Ejares did in the midst of several students and priests and in broad daylight were meant to be lascivious and with lewd designs," the prosecutors rolled their eyes heavenward. Maybe they should just send their wives and daughters to confession.

Our prosecutors were asked to rule on a simple legal question. Instead they ended up postulating on the delicate matters of the divine. What a pity. And what a shame. The worst form of bankruptcy is to have nothing of that which it is none of your business to have.