EDITORIAL - The truth could slowly be emerging

A commentary in a newspaper is alleging that it was actually men from the Capitol who put up that controversial "Never Again" banner at the Cebu International Convention Center in Mandaue City, and not who Governor Hilario Davide III said were responsible. As this was written the governor has not responded to the commentary to either confirm or deny the allegation.

Right from the start, the suspicion was the governor, at the very least, knew the banner was being put up. The banner was in yellow, the color of "Daang Matuwid." It was put up prominently across the facade of the CICC, a province-owned facility. The message wanted to call attention to unproven allegations the CICC was built by Davide's predecessor at a massive overprice. The whole operation was in aid of Davide's reelection.

Had Davide been forthright enough to own complicity in the project, he could have reaped the abundant rewards for honesty. A true and courageous leader will not shirk responsibility for his actions, right or wrong. He could have, for instance, owned up the banner and said in his own words what the banner only intended to imply. He could have projected himself as a brave and honest man worthy to be given another chance.

But Davide opted to pass on the responsibility for the banner to a shadowy group who allegedly wrote to ask permission and who, to this day, has not surfaced to prove actual existence. It was a decision that has now come back to haunt Davide everyday. What it will prove remains to be seen on election day. But judging by how Davide now seems to have been caught with his foot in his mouth, what the poll results already seem very apparent even today.

If it was really men from the Capitol who put up the banner, as alleged in the newspaper commentary, then that will answer a lot of questions that continue to beg for believable answers, questions such as why the governor quickly trusted a heretofore unheard of group he had never even seen and who asked permission to enter a government facility at night only by means of a letter.

Or the question why, given the amount of controversy the banner generated, the governor never moved heaven and earth to search out the group and make it come forward, considering how hot a potato their actions have become. Or how the shadowy group managed to put up another banner as if to explain the first -- did it ask for another permission, and if so why Davide did not make it public, or if not, why it was still allowed to enter a supposedly secure facility, if it was secured at all.

There is another thing about this whole brouhaha that goes beyond the obviously political. And it is about divine providence. There is a great lesson to be learned here -- that it is never pleasing to God to do bad things and pretend them to be good. God will sooner forgive a sinner who acknowledges his sins than the one who sells an apple as good knowing it is rotten at the core.