Accents
Maguindanao massacre: a hard look-back
Deep sadness fraught with angry denunciations memorialized the day of infamy, Nov. 23, the first anniversary of the Maguindanao massacre. Iloilo City’s Plazoleta Gay was aflame with candles tied with black ribbons. Members ofPanay Alliance-Karapatan, National Union of People’s Lawyers-Iloilo, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Gabriela, League of Filipino Students, Bayan-Panay, Alliance of Health Workers, Kadamay, AnakBayan, SELDA,and other progressive organizations offered red roses in memory of the victims. Speaker after speaker spoke in condemnation in demand for JUSTICE NOW!
Excerpts from the five columns I devoted on the atrocity are fragments of history that began a year ago, and continues to the present in the most agonizing pace in the court of law. It has seemed to be a never-ending story with Justice Secretary Leila de Lima saying that it may take six years for the case to finally find conclusion.
Being a media person myself, I wrote in the most scathing words I could muster to show revulsion at the murder of 57 civilians (said to be 58 now), a tragedy of epic proportions ever recorded in the annals of our country. Read on:
Culture of Impunity, The News Today (TNT), Nov. 27, 2009
Kill and go away untouched! Hallelujah! Mission accomplished! That is the culture of impunity that has patently characterized the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. How many hired killers go unpunished? How many go scot-free? How many cases of murder rot in courts, awaiting resolution till kingdom come, till flesh and bones of the victims have joined the elements, till their loved ones continue to mourn in agony and have no more tears to shed? Our questions will continue for as long as the Maguindanao massacre remains unsolved.
Journalists are becoming endangered species in the Philippines. Mostly underpaid compared to employees in other professions, they pursue their jobs with passion, tenacity and valor. They know the importance of their work – for how else are they called the Fourth Estate. Yes, after the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches of government, there is the Fourth Estate to dig at the truth and check the functions/malfunctions of the three branches – to ensure that ours is a government of, by, and for the people. When all else fail, the Fourth Estate is the people’s last resort.
An Open Letter to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, TNT, Dec. 4, 2009
Rather crass of me to unburden the pain of the Maguindanao massacre by putting down you and your administration. Did your Queenship drop a tear? Queen of this benighted Pinoy kingdom teeming with dirt rags, okay, trapos, the scandalous term. Did you grieve? Up to now, I get misty-eyed reading about lives butchered...Children who lost their fathers and mothers.Wives who lost their husbands, husbands who lost their wives. In the most gruesome, grisly, ghastly way. What other adjectives shall I use? Hideous.Repugnant.Worse than Iraq and Afghanistan… The biggest haul of journalists slaughtered who were there for democracy to thrive. The barbarity of it all.One for the Guinness Book of World Records.
I called you Garci’s phone pal... Coarse? Let me try something erudite and insightful. Maybe a quote from the Bard of Avon: “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods,/They kill us for their sport.” In King Lear, Shakespeare likens men to insignificant flies that wanton boys play with, and that gods play with men’s fate like the boys do with the flies. The gods in Maguindanao are the warlords, right Glo? Political dynasties capable of abject cruelty and senseless brutality, right again Glo?
Journalists slaughtered in the line of duty, TNT, Dec. 18, 2009
Barely two days after the most heinous snuffing out of the lives of media people, UP acted with immediacy, Nov. 25, putting to shame government’s pathetic action which only evinced strength five days after the Nov. 23 massacre.
The University of the Philippines ignited the demand for swift action from the Arroyo administration. No surprise that the first salvo of protests came from the denizens of the “University of the People” – a formidable hub of idealists, activists, radicals, revolutionaries, street parliamentarians – restless, impatient, on edge over the crushing incidents in the country. Human rights abuses. Graft and corruption.Betrayal of public trust.Electoral fraud and cover-up.Extrajudicial killings.Enforced disappearances. Etc., etc. ad nauseam, now topped by the Maguindanao massacre that may yet cause Bayan Ko to keel over, heaven forbid.
I salute my fellow alumni for their Statement:
“Statement on the Maguindanao Massacre by Prof. Rolando Tolentino, Ph.D, Dean, U.P. College of Mass Communication (UP-CMC); former UP-CMC Dean Prof. Luis Teodoro; 16 regular faculty members and seven lecturers from the Departments of Journalism, Broadcast Communication, Communication Research and the U.P. Film Institute; nine student organizations of the UP-CMC Student Organizations: UP Journalism Club, Union of Journalists of the Philippines, CMC Student Council, Samaskom (Samahanngmga Mag-aaralngKomunikasyon), Cineastes’ Studio, UP Circle of Research Enthuasiasts, UP Broadcasters’ Guild, Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights in UP College of Mass Communication, UP Sining at Lipunan; and by UP-CMC REPS and administrative staff. [The Statement was routed college-wide for signature of other members of the college faculty, staff and students].
“The Department of Journalism of the U.P. College of Mass Communication holds the Arroyo government accountable for the continuing state of lawless violence in Maguindanao and other parts of the country.
“We demand that the President be made to account for the murders and mayhem perpetrated by her allies and for her continued coddling of warlords and private armies. We demand the immediate arrest of the thugs armed with unlicensed firearms as well as their bosses, and the immediate arrest and detention of the perpetrators of the crime and its masterminds regardless of political party.”
“We will not walk in fear…,” TNT, Jan. 8, 2010
Came the likes of Proclamation 1081, Marcos’ Martial Law, and its copycat, Arroyo’s 1017, we refused to cower in fear. If extreme punitive measures will chill us to the point of inaction, gag us in conformity, or stifle us in obeisance, then shall we bid goodbye to freedom of expression, the sine qua non of our vocation? For life itself to have meaning, we must think, speak, write to uphold freedom of expression lest existence be damned.
Declares the College Editors Guild: “TO WRITE IS ALREADY TO CHOOSE. In the midst of the deafening cry for social change in a society beset with inequalities, journalism cannot find a neutral sanctuary. Either it contributes in the prolonging of the night or it helps in the ushering of the dawn. After all, to write is already to choose.”
Onward, comrades! Dare to struggle! Dare to win! Let us not walk in fear.
Arroyo Regime in the Philippines Crowns Its Rule of State Terror with Barbaric Show, TNT, Feb. 5, 2010
[A treatise on the Maguindanao massacre by famed intellectual Epifanio San Juan, Jr. appeared Dec. 3, 2009 in Countercurrents.org, an alternative webjournal of worldwide circulation.San Juan places Arroyo’s “Rule of State Terror” in the global context as borne by above title of his article.]
“After the feasting, the bloodletting. Only a few months has passed since de facto president of the Philippines Gloria Arroyo was publicly criticized for wanton spending of thousands of dollars in her dinners in New York City and Washington DC when another political “scandal” explodes, this time a political mass slaughter of defenseless Filipino civilians.
“Arroyo ends her de facto president plagued with corruption scandals and the worst human-rights record of any presidency, even including Ferdinand Marcos’. As of 2001, the Arroyo regime has to its credit 1,118 extrajudicial murders, 204 forcible disappearances, 1,026 tortured, and 1,1932 illegal arrests. These have all been documented by the UN Special Rapporteurs, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other international monitors. The Arroyo regime not only has done nothing to render justice to the victims, but has even continued the policies that have laid the groundwork for this unconscionable violation of human rights.”
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The foregoing were written in condemnation of a hideous past – to alleviate even just one teeny-weeny bit the pain of the families of the massacre victims and to show early on a loud cry for justice. As to how soon the wheels of justice will finally reach its destination – for those who lost their lives, for their loved ones, and for the sake of the citizenry in general – your guess is as good as mine.*
Email: lagoc@hargray.com
