So, Janet Napoles is finally in custody. And with this development comes mounting speculation over whether or not she will turn state witness or receive immunity from prosecution for revealing all she knows about the alleged involvement of members of Congress in a scam of epic proportions. The legal experts on this morning’s talk shows all say that there are conditions she and her lawyers need to satisfy before she can become a state witness, or before she can gain immunity under Presidential Decree 749.
But if those conditions are satisfied, I suspect there’ll be an even greater upsurge of fury among Filipino netizens. They’ve seen her daughter’s sparkly Louboutins and skin-tight Légers, and they suspect that that’s where a good chunk of their withholding taxes – anywhere from 10 to 33 per cent of their incomes – have gone these past few years. They’ve seen the Janet Napoles of that July 27 press conference, stony-faced and defiant in her navy suit and mirrored sunglasses. And they’ve also seen the Janet Napoles ver. 2.0 who came to the Inquirer for a dialogue: a meek lamb, dressed simply in a white shirt and jeans, the mirrored sunglasses gone. They’ve seen it all, and there’s no indication that the majority of them will find the prospect of her emerging from this scandal relatively unscathed, palatable.
Personally, I am of two minds about this whole state witness-or-immunity thing. On one hand, it’s difficult not to imagine Napoles as the serpent offering the apple of perdition to our good senators and congressmen. I’m certainly not naïve to the fact that these officials were very likely to have been strongly predisposed to taking the apple (or, perhaps more accurately, grabbing the apple and scarfing it down, stem, core, seeds and all). But it does make me wonder: had Napoles and her ilk not offered the means and the opportunity, would the pork barrel funds have been misappropriated on this scale and magnitude? If she was, indeed, the instigator of the scam, it’s unacceptable that she be let off lightly.
On the other hand, Napoles is not a public official; she’s not been voted into office by citizens, she hasn’t taken any oaths before God and the people to advance and safeguard the public interest. But the senators and congressmen implicated in the scam have – and by golly, it’s become increasingly clear just how seriously they took those oaths. Which is to say, not seriously at all. Unlike Adam and Eve, who had no idea that taking the apple was wrong, no clue what the consequences would be, these people knew only too well. But, if the COA report is to be believed, they still chose to take it, still chose to break those oaths and betray the people they swore and are obligated under law to serve.
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Seen from this angle, Napoles is merely a symptom of the rot in our system of governance – a rot that needs and breeds fixers like her and allows them to thrive. And in this light, might a mere slap on Napoles’ wrist be a small price to pay to bring these officials to justice?
At this point, I can’t decide yet which is the lesser of two evils, but I do know these:
These “representatives of the people” – who, by all accounts thus far, chose only to represent themselves and their own selfish interests – must be made to feel the full force of the law. Napoles and her brother must, at the very least, serve time for the illegal detention of Benhur Luy if proven guilty.
And if her lawyers do manage to wangle a deal from the administration for her to turn state witness or to gain immunity from prosecution, she must return every single centavo of those alleged illicit gains. Her daughters need to return those Louboutins and Légers posthaste. They need to give up those posh homes. And they need to account for, and pay back, every peso of the people’s money spent on those lavish parties.
And what happens to them after all that? After getting a taste of – well, more than a taste, really – after wallowing in a lifestyle of obscene and cavalier excess, perhaps the most fitting end for Janet Napoles and her family, is for them to live the lives they might have lived before all this illicit money flowed into their bathtubs and bank accounts:
To commute, in tightly-packed jeepneys, in buses and trains crammed full of people. To pound the pavement in search of honest but low-paying jobs that will barely even put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and clothes on the backs of their children and grandchildren. To struggle for their tuition fees, and worry about how they can afford school uniforms and books and school supplies. To comparison-shop in order to save on rice, cooking oil, laundry detergent and bar soap. To know what it’s like to have to buy these things tingi because they can’t afford to buy them in large quantities. To hold birthday parties where the only handa is pale, sweet spaghetti with tiny bits of diced hotdogs, and to call that celebration enough. To fear illness, which at best could shave off a few days’ badly-needed wages, and at worst could drive them to crushing penury. To spend every day perched precariously on the knife-edge of need.
In short, to live the lives of the people whose money they spent so callously.
An earlier version of this essay first appeared on the author’s social media account.
Illustration: Paul Eric Roca
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