Mikey’s Defense

While he was on television defending himself against accusations of involvement in jueteng, presidential son Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo sounded like an irritating showbiz talk show host discussing a blind item. He rattled off counter-attacks on the character of Wilfredo Cimanis Mayor, a self-confessed jueteng operator who claimed during yesterday’s Senate investigation that Mikey and other lawmakers used bagmen to receive bribe money from him. The congressman from Pampanga called Mayor “immoral” and added that he heard his accuser is a drug addict facing estafa cases.

In attacking the personality of Mayor, Mikey fails to see that destroying that reputation of the witness would have no bearing om the credibility of his testimony. In coming out and admitting his involvement in jueteng, Mayor has already exposed himself as an unclean character. Charges of being a drug addict or swindler would only blacken him more. But the fact remains that being a jueteng operator, he knows very well the subject of the inquiry, and is thus a credible witness as far as jueteng is concerned.

Mikey, who postponed his trip to the US to face his accuser, needs a little refresher on recent history. He seems to have forgotten that Chavit Singson, now a close associate of her mother, once took the place Mayor now occupies and how Estrada’s people then tried to destroy whatever’s left of Singson’s reputation.

Jose Pidal’s nephew doesn’t need to panic. Mayor himself admitted that he has never met Mikey and that he has no direct evidence to pin the congressman. There’s no need to act the way he did. But if there’s a deeper reason behind such a reaction, we understand–and the people will know sooner or later.