Field day for hypocrisy

Some people just do not get it. It is not about whether Gloria Macapagal Arroyo or Renato Corona are such big crooks or not. They can be for anyone cares. What is proving to be such a big and contentious issue is the manner in which they are being pursued.

Even a murderer caught in the act is required by law to have his day in court, where he is presumed innocent until proven guilty. No such adherence to law and due process were accorded Arroyo and Corona.

Both were victims of the most blatant legal shortcuts one never expected to happen in a country that prides itself as a bastion of democracy. Worse, the legal shortcuts are being orchestrated and directed from the Palace, whose occupant is a son of so-called democracy icons.

Look at the controversial Supreme Court TRO that would have allowed Arroyo to leave the country. At the time it was issued, Arroyo faced no charges in court. She therefore enjoyed the constitutional guarantee to freedom of movement.

Her enemies said she was going to escape, conveniently forgetting that before that trip for medical treatment, Arroyo already left the country seven times since Noynoy Aquino assumed office, and in each of those times she returned. So what escape are they talking about?

Fearing the canard about escaping will be exposed, they hastily found a judge to issue an arrest warrant just a few hours after receiving the voluminous charges. In the meantime, a mere justice secretary with senatorial ambitions chose to ignore a lawful Supreme Court order.

In the case of Corona, indecent haste marked his impeachment. Congressmen skirted several legal requirements needed before any approval of the articles can happen. But as karma would have it, it was the rushing and lack of preparation that is now causing problems for the prosecution.

Why on earth would people like Joaquin Bernas, a great constitutionalist known for his moral uprightness, or Oscar Cruz, noted for his anti-Arroyo vitriol, now be issuing statements that tend to favor the disgraced former president and sitting chief justice?

Because while deep in their hearts — as it is with the great majority of the Filipino people — they feel morally convinced that Arroyo and Corona did some things wrong, they simply could not countenance the employment of legal shortcuts just to make them pay.

Not only will two wrongs never make a right, but more dangerously it can lead to repercussions that we can only regret later, when it is too late. Today it only looks okay to skin Arroyo and Corona alive because people have already presumed them guilty.

But as every mature democracy knows, presumption can never take the place of proof. If every step is taken to provide Arroyo and Corona their constitutional rights to due process and they get convicted in a fair and decent trial, there would probably be no argument anywhere.

As it is, however, everything has been conveniently simplified into Arroyo et al being bad and Aquino et al being good. But there is no such thing. To say there is is hypocritical and very dangerous. It engenders self-righteousness.

If it is convenient to call Arroyo over ZTE and Hello Garci, why is it difficult to call Noynoy over Hacienda Luisita? Bloodshed, duplicity, oppression and onerous deals also attend the tenacious grip of one family — Noynoy’s — over the right of farmers to own the land they till.

Nobody in his right mind would want to tolerate corruption. But this anti-corruption drive of Noynoy is a farce, undertaken not for the cleansing of society but for political gain and personal revenge. Sadly, everyone seems all too willing to go for the ride. 

They pretend there is nothing wrong when a smoker endorses no-smoking, when that person finds nothing wrong in a Cabinet member buying pirated DVDs, when he hires a friend he knows has a pending graft case. These involve moral dishonesty, which is just as corrupt as stealing money.