A Christmas present
In the unprecedented trial of a deposed Philippine president, there was always a sense of inevitability. Joseph Estrada, whose “constructive resignation” from the presidency he never acknowledged, would be convicted of plunder, sentenced to life imprisonment and then pardoned.
The conviction should have happened sooner. Way, way sooner. We kept thinking of the Koreans, who arrested two of their former presidents, made them wear regulation prison garb and threw them into real detention cells, sentenced one to death and the other to 22 years for corruption, treason and mutiny, and then pardoned and freed them — all within a span of two years. The two former strongmen were also fined a total of $620 million — the amount they were found guilty of accumulating illegally. Justice was rendered, forgiveness accepted. There was national catharsis and closure.
But then we’re no Koreans. An earthworm crawls faster than our criminal justice system. We cry out for blood, then wince when we see it spilling. We have no appetite for punishment. Imelda Marcos, seemingly the only Filipino known to
We had another problem. Though both the executive and judiciary insist on the independence of the courts, suspicion always lurked that Malacañang needed time — a long six years in this case — to prepare for the conviction of a former movie superstar who won the presidency by the largest margin ever. Cushioning the impact of a guilty verdict became more important as vote rigging and corruption scandals eroded popular support for the child of people power 2.
And so we kept putting off the inevitable. In the meantime, an administration in constant need of every support it could get wooed Erap’s loyal masses by giving him such special treatment his detention turned into a mockery of the justice system.
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What did we think we were doing?
It started off pretty well. Erap was arrested and held without bail. He was photographed and fingerprinted like an ordinary crime suspect. Justice was supposed to be blind. The forces of EDSA II gritted their teeth through EDSA III, hanging on to their detainee. But from there everything headed downhill.
Despite all the rhetoric about rehabilitation being the new thrust of the penal system, punishment remains an integral component of justice. Despite the rhetoric about humane treatment of inmates, prison life cannot become so comfortable it fails to serve as a deterrent to crime. Punishment must fit the crime, making the offender vow never to repeat it again. By the time a convict is freed, he must be sufficiently rehabilitated to render him harmless to society.
Neither sufficient punishment nor rehabilitation has been achieved in the case of People of the
Erap is unrepentant. If he has given up trying to get his conviction overturned, it can’t be because he is admitting his guilt. Either the futility of an appeal has finally dawned on him, or he is finally feeling the burden of attorneys’ fees.
And because there has been neither sufficient punishment nor rehabilitation, his case will not impart the lesson that was supposed to deter corruption.
We are seeing this now. To the dismay of many people, even a priest is refusing to let go of P500,000 that fell into his lap, like manna from heaven, except this brown-bagged package looks like it came from the pits of hell.
Though the armies of the Iglesia Ni Cristo and El Shaddai may no longer show up if summoned for EDSA IV, Erap’s legions remain loyal. His political dynasty is firmly ensconced in
Some of his supporters probably believe, in their heart of hearts, that their idol is guilty. But they also believe that in this land of world-class thieves, Erap has been unfairly singled out for punishment.
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The result is that on both sides of the political divide, for different reasons, there is a sense of injustice in the continuing saga of Joseph Estrada.
Six years is three times longer than the period of incarceration suffered by former South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan and his handpicked successor Roh Tae-woo. Yet Erap, unlike his Korean counterparts, never experienced true prison life.
Now he is asking President Arroyo for absolute pardon. Like almost all of his requests throughout his six years in detention, this one is bound to be granted. Executive clemency, like almost everything under this administration, has become just another instrument of political patronage.
One possible quid pro quo is Erap’s support for ending the inquiries being conducted by the opposition-dominated Senate on corruption scandals now hounding Malacañang. The speculation has put the opposition on the defensive.
When Joseph Estrada gets presidential forgiveness as his Christmas present, there will be no sense of either punishment or rehabilitation. There will be no repentance, and no commitment to avoid the same mistakes. There will be no lesson learned that crime truly does not pay. There won’t even be national reconciliation, or genuine gratitude on the part of Erap’s supporters.
There will be no closure. There will only be a collective sigh of resignation to the sad fate that has condemned this nation to picking the wrong leaders.
Over and over we are reminded about the perils of forgetting the past. We have elevated forgiving and forgetting to an art — the type produced by Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. The type that’s the stuff of nightmares. It will haunt our confused nation for a long time.
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