Accents
Write on! Right now!
South Carolina, USA, Dec. 10—Today is Universal Human Rights Day, and scenes of yesteryears flash back as if in a mirage: I am marching with my students yelling the mantra Hitler! Marcos! Diktador! Tuta! And I am yelling with them. I see a co-teacher in the crowd by the roadside of UI (University of Iloilo) where we both are instructors. She teaches Chemistry, if I remember right, while I teach English and American Lit. I wave and say, Join us. She answers with a smile that I cannot decipher. Is it approve or disapprove? Deal or no deal? Spectators cheer as the protest march courses through Iznart St. Others squeeze in and find space in the line of marchers.
That was three or four decades ago on a Human Rights Day. Demos were thick then because the mantle of doom that was Martial Rule was not to envelop the country yet, not till nine months later. Sept. 21, 1972 came to be known as the Day of Infamy when Ferdinand Marcos dealt a death blow to human rights with a stroke of the pen. Presidential Decree 1081 snuffed out human rights in the land of "glorious liberty" and "duyan ng magiting." Suddenly, what I'd been telling my students became hollow: You live in a democracy. Write as you please.
My resident-lawyer (also referred to as the "significant other") would take me to task on that. Tell your students to write on any topic they want, say what they want to say, but they must stay within the bounds of the law. Yah, yah! Gee, let's see who's talking. Stay within the bounds of the law. That he did, on both radio and on the entablado, and where did he find himself? In the Marcos stockade. Ah, you don't live in a democracy anymore. Don't speak as you please. Don't write as you deem right. Human rights into the garbage bin.
Welcome, 1986! People Power has just lifted the mantle of doom. We are living in a democracy again. Oh, to behold all over again "the radiance, feel, and throb of glorious liberty…" and sing with fervor burning, "duyan ka ng magiting." The Aquino, Ramos, and Estrada administrations were a respite from the pall of gloom of Martial Rule. Each had missed opportunities to establish a government truly of, by, and for the people. Each had its share of flaws that could make Juan de la Cruz cry; nonetheless, the current regime is by far WORSE. Human rights groups have counted close to 900 victims of extra-judicial killings since 2001 under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines says that in the same period, 54 journalists have been murdered, the highest toll under any administration.
The extra-judicial killings drew international outrage, prompting the UN to send an investigative mission February this year. In his final report, Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur, stated that no one has been convicted in the cases involving leftists activists, and only six cases involving journalists have resulted in convictions. Alston dismissed the claims of Philippine authorities that the extra-judicial killings of leftist activists were carried out by communist groups to weed out spies and to discredit the government. In the midst of the Alston investigations, Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado disappeared like air bubbles, April 12, 2007. Is time long enough to say, Goodbye, Luisa? Goodbye, Nilo? I shiver at the thought. You're not in the dugout, are you? We miss you in the front line—holding the placards aloft, the voice loud and clear to an administration that is deaf and blind.
Nobody but nobody is exhuming any body (two words) from the grave. What I'm exhuming are fragments of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the UN archives. Dec. 10, 1948 was the historic date when the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and called upon all Member Countries to publicize the text of the Declaration, "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded…"
Lines from the PREAMBLE give us pause to see where this government has failed the people: "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world/ Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people/Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, human rights should be protected by the rule of law…" The Preamble and the Articles went on intense and profound.
As if in a mirage, I see my father leap over from the Great Divide. He's back in the old home. He tells this grade-schooler as he reads the sentences I've written: "You're going to be a journalist. Write on. Right now." Yes, Sir. Write on. Right now. Long live human rights! (Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)