EDITORIAL - Ultimate refuge

Cezar Mancao, the former fugitive police colonel who came home from hiding abroad to implicate former president Joseph Estrada and Senator Panfilo Lacson in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case, is running for a congressional seat in the Compostela Valley.

If he wins, he will join other former police and military officers who, after running afoul with the law or tried to take the law into their own hands, found legal and whatever-else solace in the legislative branch of government.

Aside from Mancao, a lot of other similarly-situated characters, such as former Magdalo and Marine rebels are also running in the 2010 elections to try and join those who are already in office.

What this makes of the Philippine government, particularly the legislature, is something that has not been given extensive debate. What has been heard so far are either snide remarks or nods of agreement based on the personalities involved. But never about the issue of effect.

On the other hand, why belabor the point when the target destination of these colorful characters is a legislature already populated by others who would make these former soldiers and police officers so much better by comparison.

At least most of these soldiers and police officers are products of the country's premiere military and police schools and would have made fine gentlemen until they assumed to be imbued with the only solutions to our problems and took matters into their own hands.

But some of those already holding office, by the grace of a humorous God, are far worse off in terms of the capability required to sit as honorable gentlemen in a chamber that is supposed to be the platform for law-making in the land.

It seems the legislature in particular, and politics in general, has become the ultimate and preferred refuge for those who normally do not fit in an organized, decent, and respectable society.

To be sure, these institutions are people by well-educated, properly-motivated and upright personalities we would all like to emulate. But then their doors are too wide open for the entry of those who do not deserve the cleansing grace of a doormat.