What is truth?

The evangelist John does not record the answer of Jesus Christ to this question of Pontius Pilate. But at the Last Supper, in answer to the query of the apostle Thomas, "Master…how can we know the way," Jesus said: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:5-6).

If only we had as much clarity in the Pastoral Statement of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines which recommended that "the search for truth be relentlessly pursued." Instead, while the search for truth is central to the bishops’ statement, the argument between the administration and the political opposition is precisely over what the truth is. Put differently, what would the bishops, who allege "acts of evasion and obstruction of the truth," consider the truth?

Some would argue that this debate is pointless, that the truth, any way you look at it, must be the whole and unembellished truth, that the principal reason for the perception that the search for truth has been futile is that the guilty have been evasive and obstructionist, or have blatantly lied.

That is, of course, a pretty attractive stance, especially if you define "the truth" as meaning simply that GMA must admit that she cheated in the 2004 elections and that Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano must confess his complicity in the fraud.

On the other hand, many would insist that unveiling of the truth must also include full disclosure of who did the wiretapping of alleged conversations between GMA and Garci, who else was tapped, the complete and unedited record of all the conversations tapped, and who ordered the wiretaps and under what claim of authority. The disclosure of this information will inevitably cause criminal indictments, but that’s the bad luck of the perpetrators. It doesn’t detract from the imperative of discovering the truth.

Unraveling the truth, it will be claimed, must include Garci’s telling us the whole story about why he disappeared from public view, where he really went and how come he decided to reappear at the precise time he did.

To achieve fairness and balance, all possessors of copies of the audio tapes, whether edited or not, should now come forward with credible stories of how they came to possess these tapes and why they publicly released them long after the 2004 elections were over. They should cease and desist from pandering fairy tales about how the tapes allegedly and inexplicably materialized on top of office desks or in home mail boxes.

So far, you can see, the "search for the truth" can really be complicated. The bishops correctly noted that that this search has been used by some trapos "as a means of furthering their political ambitions." But it gets worse.

Garci, for instance, laments that he’s told the House committees everything he knows but the congressmen refuse to listen. "I cannot invent stories," he says, and the problem is "they have a concept of truth different from what I’ve said."

Executive Secretary Ed Ermita asks, "What’s the truth about the elections?" His answer: "The truth is the President won." He challenges all those who have complaints to raise them "at the proper time and the proper forum," using "proper procedure."

The best way to get at the truth, newly-minted chief of staff Mike Defensor submits, is "the Constitutionally-mandated authorities, Congress under the impeachment process." This, he believes, will result in a credible and independent investigation. His optimism is not shared by too many citizens, least of all the Catholic bishops.

So, there you have it. The administration insists it’s been disclosing the truth. It claims the political opposition is fixated on only one alleged "truth," which is that GMA, Garci and the entire Commission on Elections conspired to steal the 2004 elections and the majority coalition in Congress is engaged in massive cover-up operations.

The CBCP does not pretend to know the truth, but is morally certain that, "Truth has become a victim of political partisanship as well as of transactional politics." The bishops add: "…(A)t the bottom of our political chaos is a crisis of moral values, a crisis of truth and justice, of unity and solidarity for the sake of the common good and genuine peace." But, at the same time, the way to resolve this crisis is not "resort to violence or counter-constitutional means."

While the CBCP rails at the alleged obstruction of the truth and calls for a relentless pursuit of the truth, many are disturbed that the "structures and processes" the bishops suggest include "the Ombudsman, the Commission on Audit, the Commission on Human Rights, the Sandiganbayan and Congress itself as well as other citizen groups." The skeptics are convinced these institutions of government have failed to get at the truth, precisely because they are hostage to the very same partisan political interests that caused our crisis in the first place.

As for "citizens groups," the question is: What groups? Radical ideological groups turn off the citizenry. The government has co-opted certain non-government organizations and has been discrediting unsupportive NGOs. Old alliances of civil society have unraveled. New ones tried by an ostensibly united opposition are suspect.

Should the Church then take the lead? That is a matter of strenuous debate, particularly within a Church whose leadership is reassessing its role in politics and whose own internal structures and practices are not immune from adverse criticism. Moreover, while the Church can, without question, assert moral leadership, it will now encounter serious obstacles once it attempts to assert this leadership in the political arena.

Already, certain initiatives taken by the bishops in relation to the Pastoral Statement, such as its expressed preference for a constitutional convention as the route to charter change or its call for the repeal of the Mining Act and the cancellation of mining permits, are dismissed as unwarranted and simplistic forays into politics.

The moral dimension is indubitably relevant in the search for truth. But, having recognized that dimension, the search for facts must be a distinctly pragmatic, even secular, exercise. If the truth is essential to the resolution of our political crisis, then we must get to the truth, whatever means must be utilized. Moreover, we should accept the truth, once established, even if the discovered facts do not confirm original perceptions.

Thus, even as I am grateful to the bishops for putting the crisis in valid moral perspective, the Pastoral Statement does not strike me as a viable road map for that relentless pursuit of the truth. Perhaps it wasn’t intended to be that.