Lying never
can be a science

There was a mixed feeling of pity for the man who has a reputation for quiet efficiency and has not previously been tainted by scandal or anomaly, and incredulity at the tale he wove.

Sir Walter Scott’s observation came to mind, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive". Manny Gaite was not a good liar. But then who can ever be? Even if they have had a lot of practice at deceiving.

His boss Ed Ermita’s "truths" have hardly been believed, neither by the Malacañang press corps nor by his kababayans in Batangas. Their Boss Woman has moved from one lie to another, from promising not to run for election at the monument of Jose Rizal in 2002, then reneging on her spoken word nine months later; to her infamous "I am sorry" spiel on nationwide television, after she was caught conversing with Garci, in what she described blithely as just "a lapse in judgment".

She or her advisers thought that apologizing for lapsus mentis would turn the tide. Lose some, win more, they probably thought at the time. Like feeding scraps to the dogs. Look sad and sorry before the people, admit to some human frailty, but keep the beef, even if it’s infested with worms.

Not by saying sorry, but because her constitutional successor wavered unlike her in similar circumstances (2000 versus 2005), and because FVR and JDV thought it in their party’s interest to come to her succor, followed by an orgy of buying off congressmen to stave off her political decapitation, she survived.

Her lying and her cheating was "great" art. She and her minions have tried to elevate the successful art into science since then. And she and her husband have made stealing a preoccupation since, in order to make the lies believable, cover-up for the cheating, and feather retirement nests for themselves, their children, their grandchildren and perhaps ten more generations of their breed.

But lying can never be a science, and poor Manny Gaite, for whatever personal reasons or personal threats, demonstrated before the Senate and people how impossible it is to elevate the art of lying into science.

You probably heard it, as I understand it was shown live on television. Gaite received a text message from Jun Lozada. He was cold and had no winter jacket. He was running out of funds in the expensive foreign city where they asked him to cool his heels while they figured out how they would sort out Lozada’s truth and use it best to wiggle out from the Boss Woman’s NBN quicksand. Manny took pity, seized with "compassion" for a bureaucrat he had met only twice in his life.

Of course his former boss Joker Arroyo claimed Gaite came from landed gentry roots, wealthier than his own family in their hometown in Camarines Sur. I doubt that not. One just wonders, not with malice, why Joker who thrived on pro-bono human rights cases during the most productive years of his legal career, and became executive secretary for two years of Cory, thence congressman and later senator, lives in exclusive Dasmariñas, while Manny Gaite, of avowedly wealthier circumstances, lives with his wife in his parents-in-law’s bungalow somewhere in Sta. Maria, Bulacan. But that is non sequitur, really. Just a passing thought.

But tale became too implausible when the details of his generosity were pried off by inquisitive senators, who probably are either too parsimonious or too suspicious to believe munificence so rare. And Manny Gaite, in attempt to explain the unexplainable, segued from one lie to another. He must have hated doing that; his face was a perpetual grimace, his countenance pale, his fingers slightly trembling. Truly, seating some two meters away from him, I could see the torment, and truly, I felt pity.

He decided, all by his lonesome self, to "lend" Lozada half a million pesos. He had plenty of cash in the family house, cash that was partly savings, partly advanced from a rich uncle in Bicol. Sometime late last year, he assigned land he inherited to that uncle, and borrowed to renovate his father-in-law’s bungalow. Rich uncle, who produced a hundred thousand eggs from a poultry farm a day (that means the family should have 150,000 layers, because hens do not lay eggs every day, wow!) sent him cash, yes, cold cash, hand-carried by a nephew. There’s no on-line bank deposit service in Naga City? Peace and order has become so great under Gloria’s reign, that one could blithely carry half a million pesos through five hundred kilometers, without fear of being held up?

He quickly parts away with almost half of the house renovation cost, because his conscience was touched by Lozada’s plight. He bundles off the cash, travels to a coffee shop in Mandaluyong, and hands it to a brother of Lozada, whom he recognized only because they "looked alike". He asks the brother to sign a receipt, which simply stated "Received 500,000 pesos cash," no mention of who from, and for what purpose, as every lender no matter how informal, and certainly a lawyer schooled under Father Bernas, would instinctively do. Unless the purpose was not to collect nor to re-imburse, but to cover one’s fingerprints in a foul deed.

For five tortured hours, Manny Gaite tried to sell his tale, and he came out bilasang-bilasa, like red-eyed fish rejected by buyer after buyer. And his helpless legal assistants could not even provide some ice to perk his fishy tale up.

Manny Gaite, of reputedly good up-bringing, of definitely good education, decided, for whatever reason or reasons, to choose the dark side. He shunned the light that comes with telling the truth, and nothing but.

He shunned defining moment in favor of continuing benighted misery. Why do erstwhile good men, like Romy Neri and Manny Gaite, and certainly many more, find the contagion of "evil" so stifling, so encompassing of their own human beings?

In time we should discover. Rays of hope are beginning to disinfect the decay of the dark side, never mind if a multitude of lord bishops still refuse to see.

Pray for the likes of Manny Gaite and Romy Neri, no matter how revolted we may be with their lies and their obfuscations. The light of truth may, in God’s good time, yet liberate them.