Messages

Janet Lim-Napoles’ surrendering to no official lower than the President of the Philippines; Mr. Aquino’s being part of the convoy that brought her to the headquarters of the Philippine National Police where she preferred to be in custody; and her transfer to the same detention facility in Laguna where a former President of the Republic, Joseph Estrada, was detained during his trial on plunder charges all qualify as special treatment—of a leading personality in a special case.

Although with reason could we take issue with his practically escorting Napoles to Camp Crame, Mr. Aquino had a point: Napoles’ is a special case not only because it involves not only the plunder of billions of pesos that could otherwise have been spent for health, education, and social services. It is also because of the participation of some of the most powerful individuals in the Philippine power structure, namely the members of both houses of Congress and others yet unnamed, in what is turning out to be a conspiracy of immense proportions against the people.

Whether hers is indeed the mind behind the pork barrel outrage or not, what is now certain is that Napoles is a central figure in the plunder of which she is alleged to be a part. She is therefore most likely to be in possession of enough information to hang quite a number of the gentlemen and ladies of Congress. The information she presumably holds is also vital to the campaign against corruption to which the administration says it is committed, and therefore, to the citizenry’s well-being in terms of their taxes’ going to the construction of schools and health clinics, the provision of scholarships, and those other services that in many cases today one has to appeal to a member of Congress to obtain, the usual condition being one’s support come election time.

(Among the reprehensible characteristics of the pork barrel system is that it has institutionalized patronage, being a reward for political support, and biased in favor of this or that politicians’ partisans, ward leaders, and other hangers-on. In that sense it amounts to a campaign fund ironically drawn from the citizenry’s own resources, but made to appear as if it were being made available out of the politician’s goodness of heart.)

Quite aside from information as to who are liable for the plunder of the public treasury are the lessons that may be learned from the process through which the plunder was—and probably still is, the cost of corruption being estimated at P250 billion a year—made possible. In the right hands that information would be extremely relevant to plugging the loopholes in the budgeting system, and to finally ending the pork barrel system.

As the presumed possessor of vital information, Napoles is therefore a potential and high priority target of those powerful individuals in these country called congressmen and senators who, in the first place, have been ruthless enough to place their personal and familial interests above those of this country and its people. The first condition to preserving the store of information of which Napoles is in possession is her surrender; the second is securing her health and safety.

The special treatment Napoles was receiving—particularly Mr. Aquino’s direct involvement in it—contains at least two messages. One is the literal one which Mr. Aquino himself has acknowledged: his interest in securing her person. The other is a warning to those who would harm Napoles that the President of the Philippines is concerned enough to use any means necessary towards that end.

The second message is being sent in the context of the truth that whatever the President says or does matters not only to those in government, but also to those out of it, whoever and wherever they are. Because Presidential power after all includes command of practically all the instruments of State coercion, the words a President chooses, even his or her very inflection, can have implications on matters of public concern and interest.

But having thus sent, via Napoles’ special treatment, his twin messages, one wonders why Mr. Aquino has not used the same power to send a message to the killers and would-be killers of journalists.

The harassment, intimidation, and killing of journalists are continuing, with six journalists killed for their work as of August this year, which makes 17, or an average of six per year since Mr. Aquino came to power in 2010.

While his administration’s record falls short of that of his predecessor’s administration, which, even if we exclude the 32 killed in the 2009 Ampatuan Massacre still comes to a total of 80 journalists killed over a nine-year period, or an average of nine per year, his record has surpassed that of the administrations of Fidel Ramos (11 killed over six years, or an average of two per year) and that of Joseph Estrada (six killed over three years, or an average of two per year).

What has been evident since the killings surged after 1986 is that they persist because of State failure to prosecute the killers and the masterminds behind the killings. The credible conclusion of the Ampatuan Massacre trial is especially crucial to demonstrating that  the killings will not go unpunished. But in the face of government indifference—in the face of Mr. Aquino’s frequent criticism of the press and the media, and his enthusiastic support for the Data Privacy Act and Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, which contrasts sharply with his indifference to the passage of a Freedom of Information Act—not only the killers of journalists, but also those who intimidate, harass, and threaten them, are getting the very opposite message.

And yet the press is crucial to any campaign against corruption—Mr. Aquino should note that it is the press that put the pork barrel system on the block by revealing the abuses in the system—and to the need of citizens for information in furtherance of their responsibilities as the presumed sovereigns in a democratic State.

No one is asking Mr. Aquino to welcome to Malacañang the relative of a slain journalist, or to escort a witness in the Ampatuan Massacre trial to an NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) safehouse. Neither should anyone deny Mr. Aquino his citizens’ prerogative to criticize the media. But he could do worse than to issue a statement that the killings must stop, and that the quick resolution of the Ampatuan Massacre trial is vital to that imperative. In this country of small mercies, perhaps  such a statement, delivered, of course, with all the conviction he could muster, could somehow help prevent more killings—and, who knows, contribute to the democratic imperative of dismantling the culture of impunity that is slowly and surely eroding press freedom and savaging whatever remains of Philippine democracy.