Illness scheme

Illness scheme | Daily Tribune

It’s of course been the usual thematic routine of political theatrics for decades now. Well, at least ever since wheel-chaired Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, attempting exile, forever imprinted it in the nation’s imagination when, also sporting a shiny neck brace, she was stopped at the airport.

Variations on the wheelchair routine flourished, usually including hospital detention, which notably former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada made trendy and which most recently former House speaker Martin Romualdez re-imagined with his hospital-bed mugshots.

Yet, despite plain folks laughing and getting how ridiculous and absurd it all is, the advisors of politicians, seemingly under the influence of too much caffeine or alcohol, still hallucinate that there’s a political utility for the utterly graceless attempt to gain leniency and public sympathy.

“The ‘evading arrest’ framing is a well-founded and widely shared criticism, and the timing is genuinely striking. It is not, in most individual cases, an adjudicated fact. What is beyond dispute is that Filipinos have learned to expect the hospital bed the moment the warrant is signed — and that expectation, more than any single diagnosis, is what keeps the pattern in the headlines,” as an old news account put it.

So, if by now no one is naively swallowing hook, line, and sinker this monkey business of faking illness to evade prosecution and jail — known technically as “malingering” — why does it still persist and make headlines?

“Malingering” is nothing new. It is relatively common all over the world and has in fact even been the stuff of serious literature.

Still, “malingering” is notoriously difficult to identify. Even when an accused arrives in court in a wheelchair but jumps to his or her feet and dramatically walks out the door visibly healthy once the arrest warrant is rejected.

But whether truly ill or not, defendants and defense lawyers can’t really be faulted for employing “malingering” tactics since it undoubtedly affects the prosecution and trial procedures.

Fair-minded judges do routinely consider if a suspect’s health is sound enough for them to be arrested and detained. And if a suspect is in serious poor health, judges, after weighing the suspect’s liabilities, may issue a lighter sentence.

Nonetheless, repeated often enough, this undignified legal tactic of faking illness to evade prosecution and accountability ends up suffocating most of us.

Far too often we hear the common complaint: “Aren’t we all just sick and tired of this charade?”

Yet, the fact that it’s all making us sick and tired is precisely the point. Because, more often than not, being sick and tired turns most of us into cynics, into believing that cynicism is the best antidote to malignant “malingering” politicians.

Yet, “cynicism is not revolutionary,” as one poet put it. Cynicism is not revolutionary because it paralyzes collective action, reinforces and protects the existing status quo instead of building a better future.

While it may mimic radical insight, cynicism actually serves as a comfortable retreat that leaves exploitative power structures intact and “malingering” politicians entirely untouched. Cynicism cannot achieve true justice.