The lie we know can be safer  

 While reading a number of social media posts the other day, I came across a line that I felt was appropriate and timely in light of the current socio-political incidents gripping our country. It went like this: “The lie we know can feel safer than the truth we do not (know).”

The most recent incident involves former Speaker of the House of Representatives Martin Romualdez. He was served a warrant of arrest inside the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City. Almost immediately, reporters learned that the lawyers of the former speaker had filed before the Sandiganbayan a motion asking the court to allow him to remain confined in the hospital.

News people broadcast on air a list of medical terms that I, a lawyer, did not understand. Subsequent reports, however, mentioned Romualdez's medical records, citing a broad history of more understandable conditions involving cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and metabolic health.

I could not and would not dispute the findings of the doctors who examined Romualdez. But the doctors will not and cannot question my belief that his medically unhealthy condition may be shrouded in lies. But the lie we know can feel safer than the truth we do not know.

The first incident. Remember the case of former President Joseph Estrada? He was arrested in April 2001 on corruption and plunder charges. Yet, soon after his arrest, he was instead confined at the government-run Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City and was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and acute arthritis.

The Sandiganbayan later permitted him to remain at the VMMC under extended hospital detention throughout much of his trial. Later events suggested to many that his supposed ailments were wrapped in a blanket of lies. But “the lie we know can feel safer than the truth we do not know.”

The second incident. The case involving former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was somehow similar. In November 2011, she was initially arrested on charges of electoral sabotage related to the 2007 congressional elections and later faced additional charges of plunder involving the alleged misuse of state lottery funds from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

Following her arrest, however, she was detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, where she was widely seen wearing a neck brace and was diagnosed with severe cervical spondylosis, a reported degenerative condition affecting the neck and spine, along with painful back-related ailments.

Many people, including me, believed that her supposed sickness was a convenient lie, especially after the Supreme Court later acquitted her and she eventually removed the neck brace, which many regarded as her prop. Still, “the lie we know can feel safer than the truth we do not know.”

The third incident involves Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte-Carpio, who surrendered to the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City after a warrant for her arrest was issued. The Vice President faces three counts of grave threats before a Quezon City court in connection with an alleged plot targeting the President, the First Lady, and the former House speaker.

On national television, we saw Duterte choose to take the stairs instead of the elevator at the Quezon City Hall of Justice. She said she did not trust the police, did not trust the court, and feared for her safety because she lacked trust in the people around her.

Sara Duterte must have had in mind the fate of the late Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa. The Leyte mayor was killed inside his prison cell on November 5, 2016, when Sara's father, Rodrigo, was barely months into his presidency, and the killing was perpetrated by the police.

Sara Duterte must have also remembered that during her virtual press conference in the early hours of November 23, 2024, she claimed to have engaged an assassin to kill President Marcos, his wife Liza, and his cousin, former Speaker Romualdez.

I believe, though, that Inday Sara took the stairs because she wanted the public to see her as oppressed. The intended dramatic effect was, to me, in fact a lie. But “the lie we know can feel safer than the truth we do not know.”

Many of us believe that Romualdez, Estrada, Arroyo, and Duterte-Carpio have peddled lies. If their lies are safer for them, what truths lurk behind those lies?