EDITORIAL - Family portrait

What on earth was a national newspaper thinking when it decided to publish on page one last Friday a full-blown photo of Benhur Luy and his five associates, posed in the manner of a family portrait? Did it expect Filipinos to clip the photo for framing, to be hung proudly in some hallowed place in the living room?

Luy and his associates may have turned whistleblowers now, vital to the prosecution of those who stole billions from the country's coffers. But it wasn't too long ago that they were as much into the P10 billion PDAF scam as were those they have now exposed.

More importantly, they did not turn whistleblowers out of some life-changing tweak of conscience. God did not appear to them in a dream. Had Luy not had a quarrel with Janet Napoles, presumably over money matters, the only whistling they would still be doing right now is when they're on the way to the bank.

They are not the loveable heroes the newspaper apparently wants the nation to regard with pride and admiration. They are not role models for anyone to emulate. Posing them in a front page family portrait gives them an honor they do not deserve and the newspaper cannot invent.

What benefits may be derived from their participation in the cases are purely legal in nature, and only because government itself had been hopelessly remiss in uncovering and prosecuting the scam on its own. Beyond any legal victory to be won, Luy and associates have absolutely no cause to their names.

Nobody begrudges Luy and associates their claim to consuming notoriety. In a country where government is only too willing to shove aside its responsibilities in post-Yolanda relief and rehabilitation in favor of a scam by which it can skewer its political enemies, page one is all for the picking by Luy et al.

But for God's sake, what is wrong with natural candid shots that the newspaper can devote all the space it wants? Did it have to pose Luy and associates in a manner that they can be mistaken for some great achievers or masters of some insurmountable skill?

Oh, Luy and associates did achieve something great. They escaped the just punishment of those who steal from the public. As to the insurmountable skill with which they did that? Why, they swam to shore after jumping a burning ship, in the manner of that most reviled of animals. To one newspaper -- that's page one material.