Siftings
Massacre and impunity
Tama na. Sobra na. Everytime the Maguindanao massacre is mentioned, my mind goes into a shivering fit, silently mouthing “Ay abaw ay abaw ay abaw!...” It is the massacre of human sensibility.
As I write, it’s 10 days since the mass murders: the lone mastermind perpetrator/suspect is behind bars with cases filed against him; the identification and burials of victims are ongoing; TV reports give regular updates. The world’s shock and condemnation of such unspeakable brutality has been duly registered. Military presence in Ampatuan continues to prevent more violence. Etc. Still the mind finds difficulty accepting that one monstrous act of extreme Arrogance of Power never before witnessed or recorded in the history of this nation.
In the history of the world, there have occurred transgressions against humanity, with untold audacity and impunity: the rape of European communities in the Dark Ages by the barbaric hordes of Goths, Visigoths, Vandals; the systematic genocide of Jews in Hitler’s Holocaust; Pol Pot’s Killing Fields in Cambodia; the My Lai-type rampage of killings across the villages and farms in the darkest years of the Vietnam War.
But even against such horrors, the Ampatuan massacre stands out for its sheer arrogance in the face of media and the world’s attention. A supreme act of Terror to confound the world and render Humanity speechless.
And what has this Administration done beyond sending troops and military hardware to the site, and the capture and filing of charges? The sitting president has been rendered silent and inutile,apparently disabled from a more effective, hard-line stance against an ally who presumably collectively aided her in the last presidential elections that ensured her victory, with the aid of the dreaded trio: gold, guns and goons.
She seems inherently unable to rule well, she has only managed a decade of misrule of this country. Consider this: what has she done substantially for the nation’s poor, other than the occasional titles to land for certain peasants (duly noted as media ops for news sheets) or the periodic opening of mediocre, short-term programs (duly boasted of in her yearly SONAs), such as the inauguration of health or barangay centers (shades of mediocre thinking!), ad ho-hum. The economic plans and policies she has put in place have only furthered the interests of big businesses, of the traditional rich and the progressive nouveau riche whose bank accounts continue to triple while the poor remain poorer than rats in the sewers of Philippine society: without jobs, decent homes, decent food to put into their hungry children’s bellies, with no prospect but the coming of another Ondoy or Pepeng to drive them out of their miserable homes and lives.
And for doing all this harm after ten (Oh my God! It has been that long!) years of misrule in this country, she still wants to run it to the ground. Isn’t she content with leaving this country and its resources and people materially dispossessed, politically bankrupt, morally aground and spiritually drained? Pinoys all over the world have had no true leader to rally behind in these ten years of mis-administration. The sitting president is almost universally perceived as dishonest, greedy, unfeeling, affected, arrogant, shallow, a hypocritical kapal-mukha. Evil, according to one cowardly lackey of hers. An unmitigated bitch, according to a friend.
But for all this, what does she care, ensconced behind the cordon sanitaire of Malacañang. After the 2010 elections, she will call forth political immunity. She will, with might and main, attempt again to mis-rule this country by becoming Prime Minister in case legislators, by clever money manipulation, decide to change the form of government.
That should, must not happen!
Will we, citizens of this ever-struggling, ever-hoping, always blundering-but-always-trying -to-win-Justice-Freedom-Progress-Nationhood-for-ourselves nation, allow her to get away with it a third time? She already got away with virtual murder when she successfully overrode the Hello Garci scandal and other scams. Now that she wants to serve the country in a lesser capacity to get away from justice, that would be tantamount to another massacre of innocents!
Will God allow her to get away with the massacre of this country?
