Politics And Justice

President Magsaysay died just eight month’s short of his 4-year term and had nature not intervened who most surely would have been elected to a second term and this nation’s history would have taken on a different path.

Following his example of openness and conviction that public officials are simply caretakers of the stations they hold Filipino society would probably had no need for EDSAs.

Instead what we have is justice held subordinate to political interest.

Just to cite two very contemporary examples: the rape of a Filipina by an American soldier on rest and recreation in Subic during joint military exercises to foster cohesion between Philippine and American military units in case of war.

Then you have the manipulated revelations about the sworn statement executed by an ex-policeman set to be extradited from the Yunited States in connection with the brutal murder of a public relations practitioner who had prominent businessman and politicians as clients.

To his credit, veteran journalist Tony Calvento has jumped the gun on entities which had been pulling the strings on the striptease of Cesar Mancao’s affidavit.

Now whether the facts claimed by Mancao in his sworn statement are true or not appears now to be now concern to those who engineered the premature disclosures.

With the supposed key involvement of Sen. Pin Lacson in the commission of the crime, whatever hopes he had of making a final run at high public office has all but vanished from thius writer’s point of view.

But was Lacson really the target of the demolition drive if it does turn out to be so?

No.

The target was the presidential bid of Senator Manuel A. Roxas III, the putative standard bearer of the Liberal Party and the uncompromised political opposition.

I can now reveal that this past month there have been quiet discussions among top businesleaders and leading political analysts about the likelihood of Roxas possibly pairing with Lacson to offer the Filipino electorate a genuine option.

I say genuine option because most if not practically all the other touted ’opposition’ wannabees have either been co-opted by the outgoing administration or are only oppositionists in name.

Yet again what you have is justice for Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito possibly being compromised for political ends: the aborted formation of a strong presidential ticket.

On the matter of the PhilippineS and the United States agreeing about the primacy of the Visiting Forces Agreement and its bilateral political importance, Nicole, the rape victim, will just have to concede that the man who raped her will simply stay in the U.S. Embassy doing clerical work and posing for photographs holding up the current issues of the Philippine Star and the Philippines Daily Inquirer.

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