LOWDOWN, TOO
By Jojo Robles

Two people widely expected to attend the million-strong Iglesia ni Cristo gathering at Rizal Park last Tuesday were no-shows. Only one of them was actually invited.

Impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona was invited but chose not to come. President Noynoy Aquino was waiting to be asked, wasn't, and then declared that he did not want to inject political color into the giant evangelical gathering and stayed in Malacanang.

Corona's absence is understandable. While the INC has made its support for the impeached chief justice perfectly clear, Corona has asked to be excused because he didn't want to appear as if he was running to the sect for protection against Aquino.

At the same time, the lie being peddled by Aquino and his spokesmen regarding the giant INC “tent meeting” must not go unremarked upon. And if there truly are people who will still believe that the leaders and members of the religious group will invite Aquino, whom they once supported but no more, to their rare show of force that is just delusional.

And now, Aquino not only says he “thanks” INC for its support for him, but he also asks the people to consider that, while the sect collected a large number of people at Rizal Park, his administration has a lot of supporters, as well. This is a heroic attempt to spin a bad story into good – but it still comes across as pathetic.

But one day, all this spinning will come back to bite Aquino. This president's addiction to propaganda is not new; we have seen how administrations that have decided to embrace this Goebellsian brand of information management ultimately end up without any credibility, spinning their way into a netherworld of public disbelief and ridicule.

Aquino seems determined to go down this path of full-time spin and disinformation. And that is surely the “daang matuwid” to his administration's perdition.

It is only a matter of time before Aquino realizes this painful truth. He cannot twist the truth to serve his purposes without suffering the consequences, never mind if he feels he has to do that because he has three Cabinet-rank secretaries in charge of 24/7 propaganda.

Speaking of which, where is Secretary of Something-or-Other Ricky Carandang? The presidential spokesman in charge of all the spinning, Edwin Lacierda, looks like he is in dire need of a substitute – probably because Aquino (who seems to have decided that he is also propagandist-in-chief) himself keeps contradicting him.

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It is not true, as some have opined, that private prosecutor Vitaliano Aguirre was just trying to keep his toupee in place while Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago was performing her usual ritual yesterday of lecturing the prosecution about the law. What Aguirre did, to paraphrase Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile's mixed metaphor, was to take the bull by the horns and in the process get himself thrown over the bridge.

This is the sort of entertainment we will miss until the Senate impeachment court resumes its sessions in March 12: A prosecutor disrespectfully covering his ears in full view of the cameras while Miriam was conducting her compulsory law-school review.

But instead of meekly admitting his error, Aguirre (best known as the counsel of acquitted murder suspect Hubert Webb) went to the podium and denounced Miriam, accusing her of having a voice that was painful to his ears and of disrespecting the dignity of the prosecutors. The Senate was not pleased and ruled that Aguirre was guilty of direct contempt.

It is unclear why such a seasoned litigator like Aguirre would make such a stupid mistake. It is not true, for instance, as he alleged in his defense, that Santiago's lectures are unusual; in some of the trials I've personally witnessed, even the biggest names in the legal profession know that judges are like God in their courts and do everything not to incur further wrath from the bench whenever magistrates berate or insult lawyers who appear before them, for whatever reason.

Dignity has nothing to do with it, as Aguirre (when his partisan anger subsides) knows very well. And a lawyer who takes these things personally and quarrels with a judge understands that he may well be sabotaging his own case.

More likely, Aguirre has had it with Miriam's lectures and forgot the job he had been hired for. And that is his real sin.

There are ways to get a judge to go easy on the insults, as Ilocos Rep. Rudy Farinas proved when he got Santiago to withdraw from the record her statement yesterday that the prosecution was a bunch of fools. And Miriam, whose sense of courtroom rules in very highly developed, did not object to the congressman's demand.

At the very least, now that Enrile has laid down the law by citing Aguirre in contempt, perhaps the lawyers will act more decorously from here on in. Who knows? Perhaps even chief prosecutor Rep. Niel Tupas will even stop giggling like a schoolgirl on the sidelines whenever Miriam speaks.*