Take the issue of Nani Perez and his extortion charge.

The amount involved, we now all know, is a princely US$2 million. In current exchange rate terms, that is about P96 million, way above the P50 million minimum required for a plunder charge.

A charge for extortion and a charge for plunder are as different as night and day. One can see you jailed for up to 12 years, the other for life. One is a bailable offense, the other is not. This is why Joseph Estrada is in jail, because he is accused of receiving P50 million under the plunder charge.

Nani, who is accused of depositing P96 million, is far luckier. He is charged with extortion rather than plunder, even if the initial complaint of former Manila congressman and now GMA friend Mark Jimenez included plunder. And the reason for the charge? Because plunder requires a series of acts, says the office of the Ombudsman, while in Nani’s case it was just one act of extortion.

Hmmm. Did they mean one attempt to ask for money? One phone call? One meeting?

And so, as correctly pointed out by Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, we are in a preposterous situation wherein I can pay you even up to P500 million and still you wouldn’t be charged with plunder provided this is seen as a single act. In contrast, I can pay you P50 million on an installment basis, sure as night follows the day you will be facing a plunder charge.

Is this the proper interpretation of the law? Or is this the way the law is interpreted depending on who is being charged?

And did this administration take so long to charge Nani Perez because it took them that long to come across this creative interpretation of the letter of the law in such a way that it robs the spirit of the law of its essence?

Para que estamos en poder?

Then comes bright boy Mike Defensor, continuing in his crusade to be nice to Joseph Estrada as he prepares to run for the May 2007 senatorial elections. Estrada, Defensor says, can be given provisional liberty; he has anyway demonstrated time and again that he is not a flight risk and provided he is placed under someone’s care then there is no reason he should remain under rest-house arrest.

Teka muna. Isn’t plunder a non-bailable offense, which is precisely why Erap remains in "jail"? If plunder is a non-bailable offense, then where is Defensor coming from with his own interpretation of the law? Not an interpretation even, but a re-write; in one fell swoop the prospective candidate for senator has taken onto himself the powers both of Congress and of the Supreme Court. He has rewritten the law as it applies to Erap, and proceeded to interpret it.

Hmmm. Is this a symptom of election fever catching on? Or a symptom of desperation at the looming specter of a washout on the senatorial level? Or is it because the administration is desperately trying to look fair now towards Erap because it had to somehow bend over backwards to protect Nani?

In these two most recent instances, we thus see the true colors of this administration: on the one hand interpreting the letter of the law even in ways that counter its spirit, in fact in ways that kill the very spirit of the law, maybe because someone so sensitively connected to the powers-that-be is involved; on the other hand signaling its willingness to violate the letter and spirit of another law, in a way that mocks the already much-maligned principle of "rule of law" maybe because someone who is still so influential is being mollified?

Just as he did in the Nani extortion case, I can imagine former Manila congressman Jimenez coming out and saying that GMA has nothing to do with the statements of Mike Defensor. Yeah, right. The way Jimenez is talking, GMA is not going to be accountable for anything in this administration. Which is actually even more reason to make her administration history, if you ask me. We need a leader who is accountable, and accountable at all times. And that doesn’t seem to be your friend, Mr. Jimenez.

The question now is, will the Filipino people use the mid-term elections in May to show their true colors?

I urge all those who seek a government that is truly accountable at all times to the sovereign Filipino people to throw all the rascals out and elect only those deserving to be called our representatives. Surely, if Americans can use their mid-term elections to deliver a stinging message to the administration of George Bush that its policies no longer have the support of the people, we can do the same and more.

Make no mistake: the elections in May will be a fight between a people seeking accountability and a government seeking to escape it.

We have seen the true colors of this administration; the colors are a mixture of the colors of the rainbow coalition with the pot of gold at the end only for them, and the color of green for dollars, in millions, which are stashed away outside of our country far from our reach or our prying eyes.

It is time, I think, that we turned them black and blue.