he Palace has a
bizarre concept of the truth and the process of discovering it that if adopted
as the rule in social intercourse would result in installing a judge at every
street corner. If we follow the Palace line, truth is established by the judge
and losing parties in the dispute would have to agree to the judicial findings,
on pain of what we suppose is a penalty for contumacious defiance of lawful
authority exclusively empowered to determine what is truth.
"What is truth? said Pilate, and would not stay for an
answer." This is the opening line in J. L. Austin’s influential 1950 paper. And
like Austin, it would be useful for us to take a look into what we mean by the
search for truth in the face of the political crisis we are now facing.
We want to know whether the national broadband project was
overpriced at $329 million. If it is indeed the case, then we want to know if
some people were bribed to allow this overprice to happen. Then we want to know
the identities of these people.
More questions can be raised. For example, what do we do with
these big-time thieves? Do we string them up the nearest Meralco post? Do we
kick them out of office? These questions, however, have nothing to do with truth
or falsity. They involve matters relating to the punishment of the guilty.
On the matter of overprice, there have been allegations –
defined here as positive averments – that the NBN equipment that the Chinese
firm ZTE was contracted to supply actually cost about $100 million. Similar
allegations were raised that the balance of $229 million would have been evenly
divided as profit of the supplier and as bribes to the influence peddlers had
the project pushed through.
One does not need a court of law to determine the truth or
falsity of these allegations. Any proceeding, preferably an official one where
accusers and witnesses are under oath, can make a credible determination, with
reasonable assurance that the finding would be acceptable to all.
It is at this stage where Gloria Arroyo (who with her husband
Mike has been alleged to be a beneficiary of bribery) has been stonewalling
efforts to secure testimonies of witnesses and documentary evidence.
"Let the issue be elevated to the proper forum – the courts"
has consistently been the Palace line.
No less than the President, no matter if she is deemed by
most people as illegitimate, is being accused of stealing. But all she can
answer is "go to the courts" while doing everything in her power to prevent her
cabinet men from appearing before a Senate inquiry and to block the release of
NEDA documents.
Pilate didn’t want to confront the truth. Gloria seeks to hide it. The
difference in their actions lies in the fact that Pilate was not on the dock.
Gloria is.
