E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Certifiably insane
Sunday, 10 22, 2006
I had this classmate in law school who could pluck a quote out of thin air with so much ease and make it appear it was all his own. I remember particularly the one he said about insanity: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different set of results.” We all thought he was very witty at the time, until years later someone who had the diligence to write down his effusions of “wit and wisdom” discovered that he cribbed them all from Bartlett’s and a dozen other books of quotations.
What occasioned the memory of this classmate of mine is the insanity that has apparently guided the recent actions of Malacañang in regard to its perceived foes. In four instances within this year, Malacañang tried to trifle with the law, only to find itself rebuked by the courts. There seems to be an insane mind that drives the occupant of that Palace by the stinking river that goads her to treat people with brazen thoughtlessness and without regard to due process. The underlying philosophy seems to be: “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again.” Obviously, Malacañang has not heard of the W.C. Fields clincher: “Then give up — no use being a damn fool about it.” In other words, only insane people will go on doing the same thing — bullying and intimidating people — in the hope that the next time around people stay bullied and intimidated for keeps.
The latest manifestation of this insanity was when Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay was suspended from office, and the blindfolded lady with a set of scales in her hand, I am sure, was not responsible for it. Another lady — with eyes wide open and whose hold on power is teetering in the balance — did.
No denials from a very decent man like Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita will erase anyone’s belief about who the actual author of the suspension is. The ignoble face of she who ordered the preventive suspension is plastered all over the face of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) operator who practiced first on Pasay City Mayor Wenceslao “Peewee” Trinidad, whom he succeeded in dislodging from office, before he proceeded to reprise the same operation on Binay.
It takes insanity not to know the consequences of the suspension of Binay.
As we have seen, Binay did not cower in fear; he fought it out. He has been in far worse battles before. That insane lady failed to factor that in, even as armed contingents ringed the Makati city hall. Had the troops opted to storm city hall, could they in conscience have brushed aside the thousands who were ready to die for Binay?
Prostitution of the justice system makes everybody realize that this latest adventurism to test everyone’s threshold of fear is dragging us further down to a state of martial law, if we are not yet there. There are no pretensions for fairness any longer; there is only the bravado of insane power being exercised, much like under martial law some years back, when justice was something we craved but got nothing but double-standard application, selective prosecution, if not outright denial. Nobody could have articulated it any better than Sen. Nene Pimentel who said, “Binay’s suspension shows a ruthless schizophrenic, hypocritical GMA persecuting officials against her while coddling others who have been supporting her.”
That same imbecile did not even consider Makati being the financial center. Every John, Matthew and Luke doing business in the Philippines will surely be affected by this aberration in our justice system, the standoff at city hall, and the instability of the market, and will most surely pack up and go. Come to think of it, that imbecile never realized what would become of Makati if it is left to the devices of her cronies Juan, Matias and Lucas. Or, maybe, she wanted that all along to happen — to allow Juan, Matias and Lucas help themselves (for her) to the P8 billion annual income of Makati.
Insanity, or the state of being stupid several times over, has become a tool for persecution. That is what the lady does with impunity, never minding the consequences on the country. For how can she not know that she is only picking on the local government officials who delivered for the opposition in the 2004 elections; that the charges are being filed against these officials by her lackeys; that the charges filed have no leg to stand on; that suspension from office delivers the vacated office to a lackey who will ensure the votes in a plebiscite or in an election; that this type of action contributes to instability in the economy; that the Opposition cannot be silenced through ruthlessness; that selective prosecution undermines the justice system; that this crisis could be her last before she falls?
Binay had asked for particulars: Who are the ghost employees? Let the ghosts identify themselves. That was not much to ask for. Simple justice requires that Binay should have been told so he could defend himself. And they also simply could not wait for the Court of Appeals to act on the petition filed by Binay.
If ever, this insanity against Jojo has resulted in one good thing: It has galvanized the various shades of the Opposition. Now Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has her hands full dealing with the intransigence of Binay and the a-borning unification of the Opposition.
This insanity against the Makati City mayor and the rest of the Opposition is Gloria’s undoing. Surely, the crackdown on local government officials who refuse to kowtow to Malacañang will come home to roost — this much was said by Sen. Edgardo Angara, who denounced as well this reign of terror.
Since justice now seems to have turned insane and gone nowhere, the watch for the fall begins.
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