"Today, you will be with me in Paradise"

If there are thieves among the incumbent public officials and those who are still running and do intend to steal public funds in order to recover their millions of campaign expenses, this column is dedicated to them.

- Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez

Remember that the difference between a trapo and a thief is that the thief steals and then runs, while the traditional politicians run first before they steal.

In the Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapter 23, Verse 34, it is written that while the Lord Jesus was hanging on the cross, one of two thieves who were also crucified with him, humbled himself by pleading that Christ remember him when he would already reach his kingdom. And to him, the Lord said: "Amen, amen, I say to you, today, you will be with me in Paradise"

In his book "Golden Legend", the author Jacobus de Voragine told of the story of the two thieves who were crucified together with Jesus Christ. The one on the left was referred to as the unrepentant thief or the bad thief, called Gestas or Estas by the Filipinos today. The one on the right is always considered the penitent thief, or the good thief, whose name was actually Dismas, or Dimas as the Filipinos refer to today. The left is always portrayed as the bad one or the non-conformist and the right as the good or the orthodox.