EDITORIAL - Engaging sideshows

In the Senate hearing last week on the sex video scandal starring doctor Hayden Kho and starlet Katrina Halili, during which ex-cop, ex-mayor, journalist-cum-activist Abner Afuang got Kho all wet with a dousing from a bottle of water, please consider these things:

Prior to the start of the hearing, the lawyer of Kho tried her best to shield her client from the glare of tv cameras by pressing for an executive session, to the point of even lecturing the senators present.

The lecture dutifully earned for her a public scolding from Senator Jinggoy Estrada and she was forced to publicly apologize for her behavior. Thus chastened, the female lawyer reluctantly agreed to produce Kho and was given a few minutes to do so.

No sooner had she and Kho been seated when Afuang appeared from nowhere and doused Kho with bottled water. Review the footage of the incident. Do it again and again. Did you ever see any reaction from Kho? Did he react in a manner that a man would do when doused with water?

Kho did not have the slightest reaction. Water, especially when it is cold, never fails to produce a jolting effect when it comes into sudden contact with human skin. Some even scream in the bathroom at the first splash.

But not Kho. In the showbiz language of today, he was “deadma.” As in “dead na dead.” There has to be a reason why Kho was so impervious to the dousing. But we leave it to those who saw the incident on tv to find out or presume.

Anyway, right after the dousing, the lawyer of Kho, as if on cue, promptly shot up into the air wagging a finger and began righteously suggesting that the incident was precisely why she had wanted to have the hearing done in executive session in the first place.

The point is, the sex video controversy is so engaging that we may miss some very interesting sidelights to the whole show that may also be just as engaging, especially when topnotch lawyers skirmish before the public.