Accents
The agony continues (3)
Glacier Bay, Alaska, May 15--Here we are in MS Noordam of the Holland America Line, Rudy and I, in the company of our daughters' families in a one-week cruise of Alaska. Far from the madding crowd, as old Thomas Hardy would have it. Away from the hustle-bustle, the fever and the fret. Rested, refreshed, recharged in new sceneries. Nonetheless, moments are there when anxiety persists over the enforced disappearance of our friend Luing Posa Dominado, spokesperson of SELDA ex-detainees, and her companion Nilo Arado of the AnakPawis party-list. Anxiety simply refuses to leave. If only their abductors could feel the pain of Luing's daughters May Wan and Tamara, Nilo's wife Rosemarie and son DM. Without the finality of closure, the agony continues. There's a pain goes on and on… thus rises from the recesses of the mind the refrain of a song.
The words that I write cannot summon them to surface--feeble, inadequate, inutile. And so, I yield my space to two highly gifted writers of Philippine Daily Inquirer fame: columnists Amando Doronila and Raul Pangalangan. Doronila is a fellow Ilonggo. Pangalangan was a former Dean of the UP College of Law. As quoted by the Permanent People's Tribunal, an international body whose moral weight and credibility are recognized by the UN Commission on Human Rights, Doronila writes (Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 21, 2006):
The blueprint of war outlined in the "order of battle" of Oplan Bantay Laya envisages decimation of non-military segments of the communist movement. It is not designed to engage the New People's Army in armed conflict in field warfare. It is designated to butcher and massacre defenseless non-combatants. It is therefore a sinister plan for civilian butchery, a strategy which exposes the military and police to fewer risks and casualties than they would face in armed fighting with the communist guerrillas.
The emphasis of this strategy on "neutralizing" front/legal organizations helps explain why most of the victims of the past five years are non-combatants and defenseless members of the Left. During that period the number of murdered aboveground members of the Left has far exceeded fatalities of the New People's Army in armed encounters with security forces.
This strategy is blamed for the systematic massacre of non-combatants. It offers a huge potential for human rights abuses and atrocities. It makes the regime look more cold-blooded in its methods in trying to crush the insurgency than its predecessors not excluding the Marcos dictatorship. It opens that gate to the slaughter of the defenseless.
Writes Pangalangan in his column, PASSION FOR REASON, (Laissez-faire 'desaparecidos' Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 4, 2007) on the abduction and disappearance of Jayjay Burgos of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid [Farmers' Alliance], a chapter of militant peasant organization Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Farmer Movement of the Philippines):
The abduction and disappearance of Jayjay Burgos fit the familiar pattern of the "desaparecido" [disappeared]. It should give us pause that "extrajudicial" acts of coercion do persist, the Alston report and Melo Commission report notwithstanding, global concern from the United Nations and the European Community and also the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee aside.
I have many times in the past written in this space about desaparecidos, and why repressive governments prefer to make critics "disappear" because it spares them from having to deal with such cumbersome annoyances as a "warrant of arrest" or "due process of law." The sole witness is merely silenced forever.
The Commission on Human Rights (CGR) has summoned the intelligence chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to a hearing. That CHR initiative is welcome. We can expect the AFP to deny having Jayjay in its custody, the standard "Who, me?" defense of states when accused of human rights violations. That way, a habeas corpus petition is all for naught, and that great writ of liberty enshrined in the Bill of Rights, literally translated, "produce the body," becomes a most unfortunate remedy. Defied, the petition is useless; followed literally, it is sadly macabre.
I trust that the CHR won't take the "Who, me?" defense hook, line and sinker.
I can only hope that these quotes will provoke action from the Arroyo government and truly make a difference in the lives of May Wan and Tamara, Rosemarie and DM, and other families of the 'disappeared.'
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)