In my more than 30 years of law practice, if I had a hundred pesos for every time I heard someone justify questionable conduct with the phrase “well, it’s not illegal,” I’d be as rich as my friend and colleague Nilo Divina.

And I just heard it again! This whole brouhaha about newly minted Palace communications chief Jay Ruiz — with whom I fought alongside on so many righteous battles when he was with ABS-CBN — is, to be sure, a case of “not really illegal.” But is it moral, especially when considered in light of the fact that Mr. Ruiz has been given a Cabinet-level position?

The controversy had its genesis in contracts — exposed first by the website Politiko.com, whereby Ruiz, as “representative” of Digital 8 Inc., a media company, secured plum communications deals worth in the neighborhood of P200 million from IBC-13 and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), both government owned and/or controlled corporations, a few months before Ruiz’s appointment as chief government communicator.

It is a testament to the abilities — or lack thereof — of new Malacañang communications undersecretary Claire Castro that she precipitately tried to extricate her immediate boss from the perceived legal fallout from the aforesaid contracts.

Imperiously, and impliedly drawing from her training — or lack thereof — as a lawyer, she announced that, anyway, Ruiz had six months to divest himself of all his interests in Digital 8. Only to be rebuffed by the very same person for whom she took up the cudgels, when Ruiz said there was nothing to divest. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a textbook example of “awkward.”

But unfortunately for Ruiz (and sorry again for the mixed metaphors), when the crap hits the fan, you can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube. Many dug deeper into Digital 8, including this newspaper, which came out with some excellent investigative pieces on the issue.

Ruiz’s clumsy rationalizations — using government resources, mind you — failed to address the main issue of propriety, but largely resorted to argumentum ad misericordiam (or appeal to emotion) by invoking his children.

As perceptively propounded by the TRIBUNE’s seasoned writers, John Henry Dodson and Raffy Ayeng (“‘Caesar’s wife’ test casts shadow on lotto deal,” 6 March 2025), while it is not illegal, it is highly unusual for a total stranger to a corporation — being neither director nor stockholder nor officer — to represent it, especially in a multi-million-peso deal. The conflicting information online also does not help Ruiz any. Depending on whom you are quoting, he is either Digital 8’s “head of sales (Castro), “president” (various media outfits), or he is nothing but an officious meddler (Ruiz himself).

Even taking Ruiz’s word for it raises even more bewildering questions. If he is not at all part of Digital 8, as its corporate records indicate, then why, of all the 115 million Filipinos, was he chosen to represent the company? Some netizens suggest that perhaps he was the one who brokered the P200-million deals — which were grossly disproportionate to Digital 8’s declared capitalization of only P130,000 — using his influence within the present administration as shown by his appointment to the Cabinet a scant few months after the deals were done. Of course, being a lawyer, I will believe no such thing without convincing proof.

What is evident, however, is that the chief of the government’s communications office, who spent his first few days defending himself from serious accusations of improper conduct instead of promoting the administration’s messages, enters office with a deadly disability.

If the reason for the resignation of his predecessor, Cesar Chavez, is that he “fell short” of expectations after months of trying, then Ruiz has been falling short from Day One. For such an infraction of proper conduct and an appalling lack of discretion and delicacy, he should be given more — much more — than just a slap on the wrist.