“And
ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32 ).
There was a
cyberspace story about a woman who sent off her husband, for him to go to a
nearby store to buy food, cigarettes and then some. He hurriedly walked down to their favorite
store only to find it closed. So he
proceeded to the bar for there was vending machine to use.
And he saw a gorgeous
lady in there. They began talking to
each other. They had a couple of beers
and as everyone expected, one thing led to another, naturally. In her apartment he woke up at 3 a.m. and he said, “Oh, no, my wife’s going to kill me.” He frantically requested for a talcum powder
from her as if she was a lady harassed.
And when he had it, he quickly rubbed the powder on his hands and went
home fast.
His wife was in the
doorway. Waiting for him, pretty angry.
“Where have you been?” asked the wife, smoke of fury was running through
her nose. “Well, Honey, it’s like this,
I went to the store like you asked, but it was closed.”
He continued, “So I
went to the bar to use the vending machine, and I saw this great looking girl
there. We talked a lot and had a few
drinks later and one thing led to another, and I ended up in bed with her.” The wife answered, “Oh yeah? Let me see your hands, Mister!” Husband obliged and she saw his hands covered
with powder.
“You are a liar
indeed, Steven! You were playing
billiards again!”
No matter what
philosophers in the world may say, that’s one fine example where the truth sets
one free.
I don’t know if the recent conviction by the Sandiganbayan
of whistleblower Jun Lozada for graft was some kind of a zarzuela or not but
let’s take it for the meantime at face value.
So we have now a big joke for taxpaying Maria, Juan and Pedro
considering that the decision was handed down after the acquittal by the
exposed Benjamin Abalos and Mike Arroyo.
Finally, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, not
figuratively but literally anyway. That
is if the smart Ben Abalos and the indestructible Mike are as wily as a cat
really. Well, the Justices of the
Sandiganbayan have well spoken. Who are
we the law-abiding subjects compared to them?
Here’s the moral lesson of the story, if you are an
accomplice to something like big-time money-making business out of government
contract like the infamous NBN-ZTE, before you contemplate turning yourself into
a state witness when things go wrong after an exposé, think twice as you may
end up the only one to be found guilty.
Not in the said transaction of commission-earning, but in some of your
past crimes and wrongdoing.
But here is also the problem with some of the
courts, if they could not give credence to the testimony of a whistleblower who
repented, and who could narrate facts matter-of-factly with simple spontaneity
yet the court still insists on hard evidence, who then can be convicted?
No wonder here in this nation of masochists who are
just gritting teeth, the courts find it hard to pin down big-time crooks or
powerful “buwaya.” For aside from the
difficulty to secure a video footage showing their hand’s in a cookie jar, they
can afford the services of a lawyer like Estelito Mendoza.
Elsewhere in the world, crime syndicate members were
exposed and prosecuted with great success because whistleblowers’ words gave
the greatest impact in all those cases. Who
would have thought that the super-powerful Al Capone, who often had won the war
in the courts and in the streets, would meet his match in the person of Eliot
Ness?
There in the USA , the courts believe the whistleblowers because they
as an insider have the information the outsiders don’t have. The only problem to solve about them is to
verify the facts, but people in the sleuthing world could smell a lie as
they’re smart enough.
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