“I LOVE Luciano. I love DMIA. But I love justice.”

So said Reynaldo Catacutan, former mayor of Capas and current vice president for operations of the Clark International Airport Corp. in a series of non-sequential non-consequential non sequiturs at a Sunday media conference he himself called.

Catacutan was reacting, albeit obliquely, to the accusations of harassment made by one Josie Gomez, a resident of Atlu Bola, Mabalacat against him.

Gomez, in a sworn satetment, said Catacutan was forcing her to sign some documents directly implicating CIAC President-CEO Victor “Chichos” Luciano in the pilferage of secondary cables at the runway and taxiway of the Clark International Airport, lesser known as the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.

Catacutan has denied Gomez’s accusations with the ready alibi that he was elsewhere at the time of the supposed harassment. This, affirmed by the Atlu Bola village chair himself and the Tarlac State University alumni office.

Turning the tables on his accuser, Catacutan said the three of the four suspects in the cable theft are relatives of Gomez and all are employees of her ACP Manpower Services, which was earlier implicated in the so-called scrap material scandal at CIAC.

Catacutan said he wanted to see through the resolution of the cable theft case and vowed to pursue it. Vigorously, he did not have to say. Being all too implied in his actions.

“I love Luciano. I love the DMIA. But I love justice.”

So what has love got to do with this thievery at the CIAC?

Taxing our imagination, we can only look at Catacutan’s statement as a syntax-deficient, reason-challenged poor paraphrase of a part of Brutus’ oration in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” — “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I love Rome more.”

And we all know who delivered — “with the unkindest cut of all” — the fatal thrust of the dagger on Caesar’s breast.

“Et tu, Catacutanus?”