EDITORIAL - The pieces are falling into place

The amended charges against senator Bong Revilla, which the court rejected, sought to place him at the very heart of the P10 billion PDAF scam. That would have taken away from co-accused Janet Napoles the burden of being called mastermind that so many believed but cared little to validate even by common sense.

The attempted transfer of the mastermind tag from Napoles to Revilla, while rejected, vindicates our position from the very start. While we have no idea who the brains is, it is easy to see it could not have been Napoles, an outsider who found herself operating in such exclusive clubs as Congress and the Cabinet.

We do not believe the person has been born with gumption enough to initiate such a staggering operation as the PDAF scam from the outside. We do not believe an outsider can have the temerity to crash the gates of power and tell a fearsome senator, congressman or department secretary she has a grand criminal plan for him.

Do you really think a not-so-lettered promdi from Basilan can siddle up to, say, the likes of a Juan Ponce Enrile and say, hey, let us rob the government blind? No way. It has to be the other way around. It has to be initiated from the inside. If Napoles got inside, it was because somebody let her in.

We do not know why the attempt to amend the charges against Revilla sought to picture him at the center of the scam as the alleged mastermind. But thanks to the attempt, the story is no longer as topsy-turvy as it used to be. The actors are now where they are supposed to be. Or at least almost all of them.

Others have yet to be called, however, if we are to believe the government. There are in particular some that a curious nation would like to see make a grand entrance. Like Butch Abad. According to Napoles, it was actually Abad who taught her the ropes in the PDAF zipline.

Abad of course denies this and government naturally believed him. But this is a serious allegation, something that fits snugly into the plot. And it places government on the spot. You cannot accept as true some of what Napoles says then reject completely the rest of her disclosures. Napoles is an all or nothing thing.

Government's attempt to amend the charges against Revilla to put him at dead center of the scam could be an attempt to go on easy on Napoles, perhaps as part of some deal to prevent her from telling all, including details that could put certain favored individuals in awkward situations. Good the court saw through that.