Blinding light
IN his famous “Message to the Young Women of Malolos,” Dr. Jose Rizal challenged every Filipino to use the gifts given us by God—our mind and conscience. “God, fountain of wisdom, does not except man, created in His image, to allow himself to be fooled and blinded.” Rizal uses as example of a father who gives each of his sons a lamp to light his way in the darkness. “He is exceedingly stupid and he can be blamed if he stumbles in following somebody else’s light,” Rizal wrote, while hewho stumbles “by following his own light cannot be greatly blamed because perhaps his light is dim or else the road is very bad.”
Today, we are all following in the glaring light of those who would want us to believe that the State is silencing its critics. Chief Justice Reynato Puno, too, seems to have been blinded by this glaring light by calling a summit on extrajudicial killings. I was one of those who rejoiced over Puno’s appointment to the highest office of the Supreme Court. Three months after his appointment, the Chief Justice issued an order banning the employment of spouses of incumbent justices as coterminous employees in the judiciary. A lawyer-friend told me the good news—we had been making noise in our little ways about the perceived corruption in the Court of Appeals Cebu station. Some justices had as many as three relatives in a staff of 10. Some of these relatives were known as “15-30” employees, while others spent more time attending to the family business than to their supposedly full-time jobs at the court.
Alas, the Chief Justice has joined the bandwagon of the CPP-NPA front organizations and their allies on the issue of political killings. Why does our Supreme Court have to give special attention to the killing of people who are getting killed not because they are critical of the government, but because they are part of the CPP-NPA? Some of the disappeared persons are wanted for murder, while others are heads of the NPA. Among the killed are casualties in encounters between the NPA and the AFP. There is at least one suicide victim on Karapatan’s list.
Journalists are getting killed too. But how many of those killed are like this one who openly bragged that he supplied girls to the local NBI director in exchange for the latter’s not intervening in smuggling, who used his broadcast to blackmail public officials and private citizens alike, and who was feared by other journalists for his many firearms and “untouchable” status with local law-enforcement agencies? How can we simply conclude that the killing of this journalist was an attack on press freedom?
The Arroyo administration is naturally concerned with all the negative publicity generated by the killings. So when Kadamay leader Charlie Solayao was killed in Tacloban City on July 17, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza issued a strong statement of condemnation. He went to Tacloban, to the wake of Mr. Solayao. I was surprised to receive Secretary Dureza’s press releases on this matter—I rarely receive press releases from his office. Local media reportedly asked the secretary whether he was also going to the wake of a Marine who was beheaded in Tipo-Tipo. The secretary had no idea that one of the victims hailed from Tacloban City.
The killing of Solayao came two days before the scheduled visit of Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño to Tacloban City. Solayao was reportedly the person who signed letters of invitation to the Mayor of Tacloban City and the Governor of Leyte to attend a dialogue with Bayan Muna. A few days later Rogelio Picoy, a former member of Anakpawis who became a police asset, was gunned down also in Tacloban City. Local members of Anakpawis and Bayan Muna, who are seeking to distance themselves from the movement, have sought the help of the military. They fear that they might be next.
Uncovering the facts and connections, following one’s own conscience and logic, isn’t easy considering the deceptions, omissions and biases of the stakeholders in the issue of political killings. But rather stumble in our own light than blindly follow the light of others.
