25/10/2025
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Acquitted β But Not Absolved
So there it is β another acquittal in the long, exhausting saga of the pork barrel scam.
Juan Ponce Enrile, Gigi Reyes, and Janet Lim Napoles β all cleared of plunder.
Legally, they are free.
Morally, the question lingers: are they really innocent, or merely unpunished?
The Sandiganbayan said the prosecution failed to prove βbeyond reasonable doubtβ that Enrile received or benefited from β±172 million in kickbacks. Maybe thatβs true β the evidence was weak, inconsistent, even sloppy. But when βfailure of evidenceβ becomes the recurring theme of Philippine justice, you start to wonder if our system is designed to find the truth, or to protect the powerful.
Letβs be honest β this isnβt just about one manβs acquittal. Itβs about a pattern.
Delay the trial. Discredit the witnesses. Outlive the outrage.
Then emerge decades later, untarnished by time, untouched by consequence.
Enrile is a century old. Heβs seen every administration come and go, every scandal recycled like an old headline. But the people who suffered from the corruption he allegedly enabled β the poor who never got those ghost projects, the communities that never saw a single classroom or farm-to-market road β they donβt get acquitted from poverty.
As for Janet Napoles, the so-called βpork barrel queen,β she remains the face of how corruption can thrive through connections and complicity. Even if she still faces other cases, this acquittal signals what weβve always feared β that in this country, accountability has an expiration date.
Justice delayed isnβt just justice denied. In the Philippines, justice delayed is often justice deleted.
So yes, Enrile and Napoles are acquitted. But in the court of public memory, where the victims are the taxpayers, the verdict remains: Guilty of making a mockery of justice.
