COMMENTARY
Arroyo’s Media Madness Has Got to Stop 

These presentations of suspects lend authority and credibility to the Office of the President to announce the guilt of people, no matter that they have not been tried for the crimes they are supposed to have committed.

By Carlos H. Conde
Bulatlat.com

Ever since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo decided it would increase her chances of winning the 2004 presidential elections if she started presenting crime suspects to the media, I have been bothered endlessly by it. Here is our President, supposedly the most authoritative figure on the land, acting like a two-bit cop.

These media-driven presentations of suspects are damning due process, the bedrock of our democratic system. These presentations do not solve criminality; if they do, we would have been crime-free by now because Mrs. Arroyo is certainly not the first to do this. Honest-to-goodness police work, earnest and airtight prosecution and an appropriate and swift penalty do.

These presentations lend authority and credibility to the Office of the President to announce the guilt of people, no matter that they have not been tried for the crimes they are supposed to have committed, no matter that, under our Constitution, a suspect is supposed to be presumed innocent until a court of law determines otherwise.

These presentations not only shortcut the whole judicial process; they put tremendous pressure on the police and the prosecutors to make damn sure that those who are paraded and humiliated by the President in front of the cameras end up in jail.

But what if a suspect the President humiliated turns out to be innocent? This is a real problem in this country, where many police officers are corrupt, where many prosecutors can be bought, where many judges can be wined and dined by suspects, especially the rich ones.

In fact, Acsa Ramirez, the Land Bank cashier who was presented by the President to the media last Friday as a suspect in a scam, is not a suspect in the case, let alone a criminal. The bank’s employee’s association itself made the correction. 

Land Bank president Gary Teves said that "personally, I think Acsa is innocent. But we can't just rule out anybody's involvement from the case while it is being investigated. Everybody is considered suspect here."  Excuse me? The case is still being investigated and nobody is sure who is involved in the crime or not, so why present all those suspects to the media as if they are already guilty?

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the Palace would correct any mistake it would commit in these presentations. But that is precisely what is wrong with these publicity stunts: the police, let alone the Palace, are not the final arbiter of a person’s guilt. It is the courts. That’s why there is such a thing as due process: the person is charged and tried and, if found guilty, punished. For Mrs. Arroyo to appropriate for herself the functions of the judiciary is a travesty not only of the justice system but also of what makes us human. It defeats the whole purpose of democracy.

Ms. Ramirez is traumatized by what happened to her. Who wouldn’t be? She has been pictured by no less than the President as a criminal. She’s ruined. All because her President craves pogi points for her election. If I were Ms. Ramirez, I would sue the living daylights out of President Arroyo and the authorities who put her through this madness.

This has got to stop. We don’t live in a perfect world, which is why there is no room for shortcuts. What does it profit us as a society if our leaders, in their wicked desire to get elected (or, granting, in their earnest desire to rid our streets of crime), destroy the lives of innocent people and make a mockery of the laws and principles that are supposed to make us decent human beings? Bulatlat.com

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