A History of Scandal

A His­tory of Scan­dal
Philip­pine Daily Inquirer. 2.19.2008

MANILA, philip­pines — Some­time in Jan­u­ary 1949, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Jose Avelino asked rhetor­i­cally, “What are we in power for?” Avelino was speak­ing at a party cau­cus in Mala­cañang and express­ing his resent­ment over the inves­ti­ga­tion of some offi­cials’ mon­ey­mak­ing activ­i­ties. Unaware that two jour­nal­ists were on the side­lines, he was lec­tur­ing Pres­i­dent Elpidio Quirino on the real­i­ties of Philip­pine politics.

Avelino con­tin­ued: “Why should we pre­tend to be saints when in real­ity we are not? We are not angels. When we die we will all go to hell. It is bet­ter to be in hell because in that place there are no inves­ti­ga­tions, no sec­re­tary of jus­tice, no sec­re­tary of the inte­rior to go after us.

“When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He made a dis­tinc­tion between the good crook and the bad crook. We can aspire to be good crooks.”

Reply­ing, Pres­i­dent Quirino said, “I am no saint … but when pub­lic opin­ion demands an inves­ti­ga­tion, we have to go through the for­mal­ity of order­ing one.”

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