Apologia Purisima

It’s been a week of apologies. The other significant one is that coming from former Sec. Purisima whom the media reported as having apologized to the Supreme Court for his VAT remarks.  But take a closer look at his statement :

If my actions have been misconstrued by the print and broadcast media, I apologize with sincerity and humility.

So, he’s not apologizing for anything he did. He’s sorry the media misconstrued what he said.  Moreover, he stood by his original statement that the President had asked him to study deferring the implementation of the VAT law. 

Good.

This whole contempt business was ill-advised from the start.  If the Supreme Court wants to be free from speculation, this is the worst solution because they only created another problem — what to do with Purisima?  The Rules of Court permit his incarceration for 6 months.  So, the Court will put him in jail after he stood up against the Arroyo administration?  Won’t that only create new speculation that the government pressured the court to punish Purisima in behalf of the President?

If the Court exonerates Purisima, then it would seem as if they had no basis to issue the show cause order in the first place.  Purisima has said nothing new; certainly nothing that the Court could not have known based on media reports.  Clearing Purisima may only affirm the belief in many quarters that the Court has become too sensitive to criticism and worse, impotent to do anything about it.

I hope the High Court puts a close to this matter quietly — by not issuing a resolution now but maybe 6 months from now when this whole thing has died down.  For now, they’ve made their point — criticize us and you’ll be called to explain.