Dissection exercise

I read what's supposed to serve as the profuse apology of Gigi Gonzales (no relation to me or my sister, Gigi), and for a moment there, thought it was a hoax.  The Chief of Staff of the Senate President says in one breath that she humbly considers herself beneath the Senators, and never meant to insult Senators Alan and Pia Cayetano, but in the next breath, calls Alan's allegations “total lies”.  (Oh, I'm not supposed to call Alan by his first name, if we go by Gigi Gonzales-Reyes' bounds of decorum.  But it's such a hassle identifying brother and sister apart, considering I can't use the generic 'Senator Cayetano.”  So Alan and Pia, it is.)

I would think, if you call a person's statements as lies, that you're also calling him a liar.  Which for me, isn't that respectful and hardly belongs to an apology.  So there I was, not believing it was THE apology, but then the mainstream press picked it up and reported it, so I guess that was the real thing.  Not a real apology, but the real apology, if you get my drift.

Of course, at a certain point, she will have to call Alan's allegations as untruths, especially since he has insinuated that she has some hidden power equaling that of a Senator.  (That led to an explosion of rumors in the web that she is the (gasp) mistress of the Senate President.)   But if it were me, I would not have labeled all that he said “lies”.  Maybe I could have offered the alternative of “mistakes”, since everybody saves face that way.

Perhaps, something along the lines of  “We're just extra close buddies that share the same work habits and long work hours in a pressure cooker of an environment, and by the way I sign Senate checks on his behalf, so of course people might fall into the trap of assuming we have a romantic relationship”.  Or a spiel equally convoluted as that. But certainly, not call him a liar, fresh after she called him a “hypocrite” on national radio.

By the way, the rumor she is a mistress has been denied by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, to the extent he had to admit to suffering from (double gasp) erectile dysfunction.  What a circus this has turned into.

I would have never thought we would get this far, especially back at the first day of the fracas.  If you paid careful attention, you would have noticed that the Daily Inquirer was careful in its reportage, skirting the mistress angle by referring not to the rumored affair but instead, reporting what the Chicago Tribune said 15 years ago.

The paper didn't come out front and say, “rumor has it that Gigi is a mistress of Johnny,” which would be just repeating a rumor and exposing them to a possible libel suit if things went south.  Instead, they reported a fact: the prestigious Chicago Tribune said this in their paper.  Notice that small but vital distinction?  Important shield from libel charges.

But things went (as both Senators Alan and Johnny agree) not just south but way down the gutter, and after some more mudslinging involving the purported debts owed by the deceased father of the Cayetanos to Johnny, which doesn't really seem that relevant to the real issue (before we forget) of misuse of Senate funds, the papers were less restrained in calling a rumored mistress, a rumored mistress.

(By the way, Alan has reportedly denied he has linked them romantically.  And if you check the reportage, it seems he hasn't.  The Inquirer was right to be careful.)

Wait.  So where are we?  Oh right.  An apology.  Which, by the way, also included an allusion to what Johnny feels deeply aggrieved about with respect to the Cayetanos, something so hidden and buried that it will explain why Johnny has been acting this way, treating the Cayetanos shabbily and digging up dirt about their father.  Something so secret that it's been harbored with no apparent traces, kept alive through so many years of camaraderie in the Senate.  Something the Senator never revealed - except apparently, to her.

The next installment of this circus awaits.