Moving on

Moving on

MOVING on” or “let’s move on” is the catch-phrase of the season.

The phrase has dripped from the mouth of politicians, columnists, editorial writers, broadcast journalists, Palace officials, the President and everyone wishing to sweep a nightmare away.

We are advised to move on after the resolution of a big political scandal, a messy business scam, an ugly congressional investigation or an unsuccessful attempt to destabilize the government.

It means that Filipinos should keep moving, get the nightmare behind them and just push on. Get a life, please!

We should move on after the trial of President Estrada, which consumed us for more than six years. We heard that advice after the nursing exam scandal, the May 14 election anomalies, the military boo-boos in Sulu, the attempts at government destabilization and poor government response to natural disasters.

Manfully, we collected ourselves, shook off the scary headlines and the TV news, and told ourselves we were flexible and strong, and that we have survived.

Filipinos, after all, are a forgiving and a forgetful people. We have a short memory for national troubles, sensational crimes and man-size scandals. We have a very high threshold for patience and leniency.

OK, we promise to move on. We close the book on the Estrada case. It’s time to resume our normal life. We have other important things to do.

Besides, look at the bright side. The peso is strong. OFW deployment will hit one million in less than a year. Remittances are up 16% in seven months.

S&P has reaffirmed its “BB+B” (plus or minus) for foreign and local currency issuer credit ratings on the Philippines, meaning the outlook is stable. Employment has risen as of July. Foreign investments are pouring in. Our ‘economic fundamentals’ are very strong.

Of course there are other worries on the horizon. The government has a hard time selling the national broadband network project. The Department of Education’s cyber-education program smells like a fake diploma. The Commission on Higher Education has discovered a suspicious P500-million campus-based call-center project on its backyard. The customs bureau and the BIR have not met their collection targets. It’s 2007 but we have not automated the voting system. We need to address the long-playing MILF secessionism and the NPA insurgency that are hindering development in the regions.

But what the heck—let’s move on.

Let’s book that trip to Macau next week. Order the Wagyu beef from TriNoMa. Let’s wake up late today, Sunday, and pretend nothing bad happened. Join the barkada for gin and coke. Rent the new Angel Locsin DVD. Take the family to Luneta. We will move on. We will not be defeated by the system. We will help the nation survive.

Gross national joy

IT would not be a bad idea if President Arroyo creates a National Commission on National Happiness to determine the level of our well-being and satisfaction.

The thought came to mind after reading that the World Database of Happiness, which lists 95 countries, has determined that Denmark (with a rating of 8.2), Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and Finland, all with high per capita income, are the “happiest” countries.

But wealth is not only the gauge of the Database, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute and the Cambridge Institute of Well-Being, all doing research on what makes races and nations happy. Their yardsticks include education, nutrition, freedom from fear and violence, gender equality, mental health and having choices.

The United States makes it to the top 15 with a 7.4 index rating. In the middle range are the Philippines (6.4), Indonesia (6.2) and Iran (6). At the bottom are Tanzania (3.2), Zimbabwe (3.3) and Moldova (3.5).

The small kingdom of Bhutan said goodbye to gross national product a long time ago and said Bhutans should aspire to Gross National Happiness. Bhutan’s idea of collective happiness is based on equitable development, environmental conservation, cultural heritage and good government.

Today think tanks and research institutes are working on development models for methods to find out what makes peoples happy and why.

Filipinos are generally a happy people. Our sense of humor does not fail us even during national tragedies. Martial law and the Aquino assassination inspired many jokes, some still circulating today. OFW jokes about life in the US, Japan and the Middle East are plentiful. The only people who do not appreciate humor—especially jokes at their expense—are government officials.

We have a popular observation about Filipinos: Mababaw ang kaligayan (easy to please). We make do with the basics: three meals a day. A roof over one’s head. A good job. Family and friends. We are a hospitable people. We make friends easily. Pakikisama (the ability to get along) and utang na loob (returning a favor) are national virtues.

But the Presidential Commission on National Happiness could raise our level of well-being. It could look into quality-of-life issues, such as having clean air and water, less public noise, building more parks, making traffic more tolerable, building an efficient public-transportation system, insuring prompt trash collection, making medicine cheaper and making the neighborhood safer for children.

If we cannot become a First-World country, we could at least expand our national smile.

Memories, murmurs

Memories, murmurs

I'm doing a buffet column today. the articles can stand alone, but are related. So they can be read in installments. Choose what you want to read and when.

Mercifully brief, I thought to myself at 9:20 on Wednesday as the Sandiganbayan clerk finished reading the verdict and sentence for ex-President Joseph Estrada.

The Sandiganbayan was wise to choose that path because reading the entire decision, said to run more than 200 pages, would have been more "correctly" Filipino and yet dangerous. Like the "Pasyon" sung out every Holy Week, no one would have really been listening, much less understanding, the decision (written in English), but it would have amplified whatever emotions people had. I couldn't help contrasting Wednesday's courtroom atmosphere with that of the "Nicole" trial a few months back, where the "guilty" verdict for Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was followed by cheering.

I'm glad, too, that government and media seemed to agree that we didn't need to stoke people's passions. The television cameras were not allowed to focus on Estrada while the verdict was being read. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo kept her silence, as did Raul Gonzalez and other presidential advisors with foot-in-mouth afflictions. We did get a still fiery but relatively subdued La Senadora Miriam Defensor-Santiago preaching about Christian magnanimity.

Maybe because there was so little of fireworks and political noise, we ended up hearing more of public "murmuring," muted but perceptible feelings that were actually quite similar, regardless of people's support of or opposition to Erap. I can summarize this feeling as: "But the looting and plundering have worsened," sometimes accompanied by a wistful: "She better be careful; someday she could be the one on trial."

I'm using "murmur" here in a medical sense. A heart murmur may be mild and muted, but it "speaks" of potentially serious trouble, even as it troubles the entire psyche. If the trial seemed anticlimactic, it is because people feel shortchanged . . . not by the verdict itself or the sentencing (which I think many people found too harsh, in the context of Erap's age), than by the way the country continues to plod along, like a patient with heart disease who has gone to see the doctor--and has been advised to stick a band-aid plaster on the chest every time he suffers distress. People want more, but we're not getting it for now, so we just move on.

Histories
Justice, oh justice. Visit Youtube on the Internet and type in "Cebu, Thriller" to get a video of a thousand Cebu prisoners dancing away to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." The star of the show is "Wenjell," a drag queen who ends up getting devoured by the "zombie" prisoners. Well, she's been in prison now for three years on drug-related charges, and has not been brought to trial. Erap got a trial, but languished, sort of, under house arrest for six years before a verdict was handed down.

In the long run though, justice comes not through courts and judges but from the pen (or computer keyboards) of our historians looking back at our troubled times. Years from now, historians not even born today will go through the archives--hard and electronic copies, court transcripts and newspaper columns and yes, blogs and YouTube--and pass judgment. We will hear again of our presidents, from Aguinaldo to Marcos and Aquino and Ramos and Estrada . . . and Arroyo.

Historians are no longer just chroniclers dishing out dates and names of great people. Today's historians are more like explorers and archaeologists, piecing together the most minute of detailed information to produce what they call "total events," complete with descriptions of context of places and people. They are not just using official archives now but also looking into letters and diaries, folklore and life histories. In the graduate anthropology course I teach, I often have quite a few history majors eager to learn new ways of understanding, and interpreting, our past.

Instead of one Philippine history, we have many histories written and waiting to be written. There are Filipinos who grew up learning about the Philippines from American historians. Then Filipino historians came in to rewrite the textbooks, sometimes questioning earlier accounts: Zaide, Agoncillo, Constantino, the Inquirer's own Ambeth Ocampo. Ambeth's books are best-sellers because they show the human side to our heroes and villains--what they ate, whom they loved (now why did I think of eating and loving at the same time?).

Historians give life and color and perspective to the events. For many years, Vietnamese history books tended to be hagiographies, full of praise for all the brave Vietnamese generals who defeated the American imperialists. Today, there are new books talking about daily life during the war. One of the current best-sellers in Vietnam is a book featuring excerpts from the diary of a young Vietnamese woman doctor who wrote about all her fears and anxieties and sadness, even while remaining totally committed to her work of ministering to the wounded and dying. She died before the war ended, and young Vietnamese feel that history must reflect, too, the valor of the Vietnamese outside the war arenas. (It's interesting, too, that the diary ended up with an American GI, who was able to return it to Vietnam after the war ended.)

Future histories of the Philippines will feature more "inside stories" about the famous and not-so-famous that will put many of our presidents in a new light. I have no doubt we will hear more of Joseph Estrada's life, when he was in Malacañang as well as under house arrest. So too, we will hear of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's life in Malacañang, as a president's daughter and as a president.

Time is always on the historian's side, people now silent will come forth in safer times to speak and to hand over important documents. But time is also on the side of controversial figures like Marcos and Estrada and Arroyo, allowing future generations of Filipinos access to more facts and therefore to become more critical, but kinder and gentler in their judgments.

UP memories
Our anthropology department at UP turns 90 this year while the university will be celebrating its centennial next year. From time to time, I'll be talking about some of the anniversary projects and activities, often with an appeal for help. For starters, the UP Diliman Information Office is compiling a coffee table centennial book, "UPD Sights and Sounds," and needs back issues of the Philippinensian (1918 to 1931, 1937 to 1941, 1949, 1951, 1966 to 1968), as well as The Plow, The Veterinarian, The Woolsack and The Tic. (You can figure out which colleges produced the first two magazines, but woolsacks and tics?) Call the Information Office at 924-1881 or 920-5802 if you have copies that you can lend or donate.

Magnificent

Magnificent

The motion of defense counsel to dispense with a full reading of the Sandiganbayan decisions in the perjury and plunder cases against Joseph Estrada has allowed the ex-president, his family and his allies to fudge the truth--and confuse the public.

This is unfortunate, because the rulings, especially the 262-page decision in the plunder case, are a clear example of solid, straightforward legal reasoning. There are certain errors, to be sure, such as an innocent confusion between the two Estrada vs. Sandiganbayan decisions upholding the constitutionality of the plunder law, but in the main the three Sandiganbayan justices outdid themselves: They sift confidently through the mass of evidence, organize the most salient, set forth their findings of fact--and then apply the law.

Every single assertion made by Estrada and his supporters since Wednesday's promulgation can be answered directly from the decision.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, for instance, assailed the court (the same court which acquitted him) for convicting his father on the illegal gambling charge. Since when did jueteng money, he asked for argument's sake, become public funds?

His question is irrelevant, because the plunder law penalizes any public official who systematically amasses ill-gotten wealth. The "public treasury" is only one of six possible sources of illegal wealth specified by the law. The sixth, in fact, can be understood as a catch-all condition: "By taking undue advantage of official position, authority, relationship, connection or influence to unjustly enrich himself or themselves at the expense and to the damage and prejudice of the Filipino people and the Republic of the Philippines." (The decision quotes this ringing line toward its conclusion.)

We have to remember that the plunder law--Republic Act 7080, as amended--came into being as a legislative reaction to the excesses of the Marcos regime. (Now that was plunder, on a grand, one-for-the-Guinness-book-of-world-records scale.) As Justice Josue Bellosillo of the Supreme Court wrote, over a decade after RA 7080 became law: "Drastic and radical measures are imperative to fight the increasingly sophisticated, extraordinarily methodical and economically catastrophic looting of the national treasury."

In its own decision, the Sandiganbayan quotes at length from the Explanatory Note to the Senate bill that helped lead to the plunder law. One passage reads: "The acts and/or omissions sought to be penalized do not involve simple cases of malversation of public funds, bribery, extortion, theft and graft but constitute plunder of an entire nation resulting in material damage to the national economy."

In this dark light, centralizing jueteng operations in Malacañang certainly qualifies as plunder.

Estrada himself took the court to task for issuing a "political" decision, saying he could not blame the justices because the Sandiganbayan's special division was "programmed to convict" him. A close reading of the decision on the plunder case, however, will show that--despite obvious pressure from both the Arroyo administration and from Estrada's political camp--the three members of the Sandiganbayan stuck scrupulously to the law's straight and narrow.

They acquitted the younger Estrada and the lawyer Ed Serapio because, in their assessment of the evidence, the prosecution failed to prove the case against the two co-accused beyond a reasonable doubt. They found that the Velarde account contained unimaginable wealth, but said the prosecution failed to prove the money was ill-gotten--except, that is, for P189 million, which they identified, beyond any doubt, as the commissions Estrada received from the purchase of Belle Corp. shares by the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System. The language of the decision reflects the quality of the reasoning: measured, assured, humane, just.

The Sandiganbayan's plunder decision reminds us again that, through the turmoil of the last seven lean years, beginning with Estrada's aborted impeachment trial in the Senate, the courts have played a leading role in holding our democracy together.

World War Two matters

World War Two matters

Jovito R. Salonga, president of the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines from 1987 to 1991, is the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service. He is recognized for the exemplary substance of his long public career "in service to democracy and good government."

Salonga, Chairman Emeritus of Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, fought the fascist Japanese who invaded his homeland in 1941, for which he was arrested, jailed and tortured. In his autobiography, the founder of Bantay Katarungan revealed: "I decided to counteract Japanese propaganda in Pasig by circulating news about the war, based on short-wave broadcasts from Australia (BBC) and from San Francisco, California. I made use of my typewriter and added my own comments." [A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Quezon City: UP Center for Leadership, Citizenship and Democracy, 2001, p. 14]

In April 1942, Salonga was arrested by Japanese military police at the instigation of pro-Japanese elements in his hometown. "I was detained in the Pasig municipal jail and investigated day and night at the nearby Kempeitai headquarters (house of well-known contractor Fortunato Concepcion) in the presence of my father. I was slapped, beaten up, and made to carry a heavy load of water atop my head while under interrogation."

A few days after the Fall of Bataan, Salonga was transferred to Fort Santiago, then to the City Jail in San Marcelino (Manila) where he met other Filipinos ("men of breeding and dignity") who had also been circulating war news from Allied sources. He was already in the Old Bilibid in Manila when he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

It was June 11, 1942. After his trial and sentencing, Salonga was brought to the New Bilibid in Muntinlupa. Eight months of incarceration. He was lucky to be released due to Kigensetsu, Japan’s foundation day, February 11, 1943.

Salonga went back to his law studies, took and topped the Philippine Bar Examinations in 1944. While he was taking the tests for admittance to the practice of law, his fellow Evangelicals were being oppressed by the imperialist Japanese. On August 24, 1944, Tito Dans, Agustin Ortega, Serafin Aquino, Col. Jose Moran and Severino Araos, who were members of Rev. Mary Boyd Stagg’s Anti-Japanese Propaganda and Espionage Movement based in Cosmopolitan Church, were court-martialed and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in Muntinlupa. He himself had narrowly evaded the round of arrests and guerrilla suppression. Salonga was listed as a captain in the ROTC-Hunters Guerrillas.

In the aftermath of the Japanese Occupation, Salonga testified in the war crimes trial of Colonel Nagahama, Kempeitai chief and Fort Santiago commander.

In addition to the Shintoist war criminals, native collaborators of the fascist invaders were also being held to account for their treasonous behavior. Who victimized Salonga’s fellow Protestants? "I was to be told later that a certain Franco Vera Reyes, a double agent, who had probably been in Cosmopolitan a number of times, was the one who squealed on Mother Stagg and her co-workers." (p. 27)

What about the fanatical follower of Benigno Ramos who caused the arrest and torture of Salonga? The name is found in page 38 of his memoirs.

Be that as it may, the matter of Filipino wartime collaboration with the murderous followers of the Japanese emperor was also tackled in the 16th National Conference of the UP Lipunang Pangkasaysayan.

The collaborators were native inhabitants and residents of the Philippines who allowed themselves to be tools of the Nipponese war machine. They were Hitler’s Oriental imitators, spies, snitches and stool pigeons, puppet politicians and bureaucrats, pro-Japanese propagandists and opportunistic profiteers.

The label most synonymous with collaborator is "Makapili," which the Supreme Court defined as "the "Makabayan Katipunan ng mga Pilipino (Makapili), an organization of military character, founded and organized for the purpose of giving material support and physical or moral assistance and aid to the Empire of Japan and Imperial Japanese Forces in the Philippines." [People of the Philippines vs. Domingo Capacete]

In this case, the High Court affirmed the conviction of the appellant for murder, for which he was sentenced to reclusion perpetua and ordered to pay a 10,000-peso fine and costs for treason. [G.R. No. L-943 November 22, 1947]

In another case, a collaborator was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 10,000 pesos and the costs of treason for the following acts: "In the month of February, 1945, adhered and given aid and comfort to the enemy by joining the Makapili organization in the City of San Pablo, Laguna, and cooperating with the Japanese Army in the apprehension of guerrilla suspects, in particular, in the rounding up, on February 24, 1945, of over six hundred civilians in the said city and the identification and segregation out of that group of a number of guerrilla suspects, who were on that same day massacred by the Japanese soldiers." [People of the Phil. vs. Ismael Aquivido]

Military collaboration, that is, assisting the Japanese armed forces in its operations, made the Makapili and similar bands accessories and accomplices in homicide and genocide.

How about political collaboration, that is, accepting Nippon’s imperial ambitions and using the political and policy process to facilitate fascist and elitist intentions?

Prime mechanism of this political crime was the puppet regime – an illegitimate agency whose "Constitution was never submitted to the people for approval, and whose President was not elected by popular suffrage." [Arturo M. Tolentino. Voice Of Dissent. Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 1990, p. 51]

The puppet regime invited "the (Japanese) Army to administer the coal mines and their properties which belong to the National Development Company located in Uling, Naga, Cebu; Danao, Cebu; and Malangas, Zamboanga." [The Tribune, July 12, 1944]

The puppet regime was also a vehicle for the Nipponization of Philippine society. A unit in the Ministry of Education was created for the "function of spreading Oriental culture principally among school children." The Bureau of Oriental Culture was charged with the preparation of textbooks for both public and private schools, and "in its studies and researches on other East Asian cultures, special emphasis will be laid on the culture of Japan." To carry out its non-Filipino mandate, "a separate section will be created to conduct studies and investigations Japanese culture." [The Tribune, February 3, 1944, p. 1]

These Nipponese indoctrination units, ostensibly civilian, became military in intent when push came to shove. The New Philippine Cultural Institute, an educational institution created by the Japanese military, turned "later into a volunteer army which showed determination to fight against the returning US forces." [Motoe Terami-wada, "Lt. Shigenobu Mochizuki and the New Philippine Culture Institute," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, March 1996]

At present, to be branded a "bagong makapili" for, say, supporting the onerous provisions of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA is harsh indeed).

World War Two matters

World War Two matters

Jovito R. Salonga, president of the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines from 1987 to 1991, is the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service. He is recognized for the exemplary substance of his long public career "in service to democracy and good government."

Salonga, Chairman Emeritus of Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, fought the fascist Japanese who invaded his homeland in 1941, for which he was arrested, jailed and tortured. In his autobiography, the founder of Bantay Katarungan revealed: "I decided to counteract Japanese propaganda in Pasig by circulating news about the war, based on short-wave broadcasts from Australia (BBC) and from San Francisco, California. I made use of my typewriter and added my own comments." [A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Quezon City: UP Center for Leadership, Citizenship and Democracy, 2001, p. 14]

In April 1942, Salonga was arrested by Japanese military police at the instigation of pro-Japanese elements in his hometown. "I was detained in the Pasig municipal jail and investigated day and night at the nearby Kempeitai headquarters (house of well-known contractor Fortunato Concepcion) in the presence of my father. I was slapped, beaten up, and made to carry a heavy load of water atop my head while under interrogation."

A few days after the Fall of Bataan, Salonga was transferred to Fort Santiago, then to the City Jail in San Marcelino (Manila) where he met other Filipinos ("men of breeding and dignity") who had also been circulating war news from Allied sources. He was already in the Old Bilibid in Manila when he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

It was June 11, 1942. After his trial and sentencing, Salonga was brought to the New Bilibid in Muntinlupa. Eight months of incarceration. He was lucky to be released due to Kigensetsu, Japan’s foundation day, February 11, 1943.

Salonga went back to his law studies, took and topped the Philippine Bar Examinations in 1944. While he was taking the tests for admittance to the practice of law, his fellow Evangelicals were being oppressed by the imperialist Japanese. On August 24, 1944, Tito Dans, Agustin Ortega, Serafin Aquino, Col. Jose Moran and Severino Araos, who were members of Rev. Mary Boyd Stagg’s Anti-Japanese Propaganda and Espionage Movement based in Cosmopolitan Church, were court-martialed and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in Muntinlupa. He himself had narrowly evaded the round of arrests and guerrilla suppression. Salonga was listed as a captain in the ROTC-Hunters Guerrillas.

In the aftermath of the Japanese Occupation, Salonga testified in the war crimes trial of Colonel Nagahama, Kempeitai chief and Fort Santiago commander.

In addition to the Shintoist war criminals, native collaborators of the fascist invaders were also being held to account for their treasonous behavior. Who victimized Salonga’s fellow Protestants? "I was to be told later that a certain Franco Vera Reyes, a double agent, who had probably been in Cosmopolitan a number of times, was the one who squealed on Mother Stagg and her co-workers." (p. 27)

What about the fanatical follower of Benigno Ramos who caused the arrest and torture of Salonga? The name is found in page 38 of his memoirs.

Be that as it may, the matter of Filipino wartime collaboration with the murderous followers of the Japanese emperor was also tackled in the 16th National Conference of the UP Lipunang Pangkasaysayan.

The collaborators were native inhabitants and residents of the Philippines who allowed themselves to be tools of the Nipponese war machine. They were Hitler’s Oriental imitators, spies, snitches and stool pigeons, puppet politicians and bureaucrats, pro-Japanese propagandists and opportunistic profiteers.

The label most synonymous with collaborator is "Makapili," which the Supreme Court defined as "the "Makabayan Katipunan ng mga Pilipino (Makapili), an organization of military character, founded and organized for the purpose of giving material support and physical or moral assistance and aid to the Empire of Japan and Imperial Japanese Forces in the Philippines." [People of the Philippines vs. Domingo Capacete]

In this case, the High Court affirmed the conviction of the appellant for murder, for which he was sentenced to reclusion perpetua and ordered to pay a 10,000-peso fine and costs for treason. [G.R. No. L-943 November 22, 1947]

In another case, a collaborator was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 10,000 pesos and the costs of treason for the following acts: "In the month of February, 1945, adhered and given aid and comfort to the enemy by joining the Makapili organization in the City of San Pablo, Laguna, and cooperating with the Japanese Army in the apprehension of guerrilla suspects, in particular, in the rounding up, on February 24, 1945, of over six hundred civilians in the said city and the identification and segregation out of that group of a number of guerrilla suspects, who were on that same day massacred by the Japanese soldiers." [People of the Phil. vs. Ismael Aquivido]

Military collaboration, that is, assisting the Japanese armed forces in its operations, made the Makapili and similar bands accessories and accomplices in homicide and genocide.

How about political collaboration, that is, accepting Nippon’s imperial ambitions and using the political and policy process to facilitate fascist and elitist intentions?

Prime mechanism of this political crime was the puppet regime – an illegitimate agency whose "Constitution was never submitted to the people for approval, and whose President was not elected by popular suffrage." [Arturo M. Tolentino. Voice Of Dissent. Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 1990, p. 51]

The puppet regime invited "the (Japanese) Army to administer the coal mines and their properties which belong to the National Development Company located in Uling, Naga, Cebu; Danao, Cebu; and Malangas, Zamboanga." [The Tribune, July 12, 1944]

The puppet regime was also a vehicle for the Nipponization of Philippine society. A unit in the Ministry of Education was created for the "function of spreading Oriental culture principally among school children." The Bureau of Oriental Culture was charged with the preparation of textbooks for both public and private schools, and "in its studies and researches on other East Asian cultures, special emphasis will be laid on the culture of Japan." To carry out its non-Filipino mandate, "a separate section will be created to conduct studies and investigations Japanese culture." [The Tribune, February 3, 1944, p. 1]

These Nipponese indoctrination units, ostensibly civilian, became military in intent when push came to shove. The New Philippine Cultural Institute, an educational institution created by the Japanese military, turned "later into a volunteer army which showed determination to fight against the returning US forces." [Motoe Terami-wada, "Lt. Shigenobu Mochizuki and the New Philippine Culture Institute," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, March 1996]

At present, to be branded a "bagong makapili" for, say, supporting the onerous provisions of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA is harsh indeed).

Ending enforced disappearances

Ending enforced disappearances

Approximately 183 citizens have disappeared since 2001, according to human-right groups that keep count; about 1,900 since 1973. Enforced disappearances continued during the administrations of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada. Who carried out the abductions? What happened to the victims? Were the perpetrators ever been prosecuted and punished?

Leftist organizations have blamed elements of the military and the police since most of the victims were persons known to have socialist or communist leanings. They said they have witnesses and evidence to back their claim. The Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police have denied the charge. The military said the New People’s Army, the Abu Sayyaf or the Moro secessionists could have had a hand in the abductions.

The International Convention for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance defines involuntary disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence by the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”

The latest abduction being pinned on the military is that of Jonas Burgos, a farmer and a training specialist for a national organization of peasants. It has been three months since a group of men seized him at a shopping mall in Quezon City. The military has denied involvement. The PNP on Tuesday produced three “communists” who said at a press briefing that the NPA abducted the son of journalist Jose Burgos.

Still missing are Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado, missing since April 12; Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan, two UP students said to have been abducted by the military on June 26, 2006, and other students, workers, farmers, lawyers and labor organizers identified with left-of-center organizations.

The search for the desaparacidos continues while efforts to stop abductions by the military, police and enemies of the state intensify. In what could be a giant step, 131 congressmen, crossing party lines, have introduced a bill that defines involuntary disappearance and prescribes sanctions on perpetrators and accomplices.

House Bill 2263, “an act defining and penalizing the crime of enforced or involuntary disappearance,” metes life imprisonment for persons involved in such crime. The bill describes five categories of involvement.

It seeks the rehabilitation of the victims and prescribes compensation to their families. The measure aims to provide protection to victims, families, legal counsel, human-rights organizations, the media and witnesses of involuntary disappearance.

The principal author, Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, said that he phenomenon of enforced disappearance has largely remained undefined, unchecked and unpunished in the country. No specific offense related to it has been recognized despite its systematic occurrence in the past 30 years, he added.

The vigor with which the administration and opposition lawmakers supported HB 2263 is comforting. We hope the Senate, under President Manny Villar, would pass its version soon and a conference committee would work on a unified bill for the signature of President Arroyo.

The unabated kidnapping of Filipino citizens—whether socialists, nationalists or communists—is a blot on our democracy and system of justice. It mocks our pretensions to law and order and claims to development with social conscience.

Any law protecting human rights and the safety of citizens, however, will fail unless the Establishment—political, police and military—accepts left-of-center thought as an integral part of the body politic and that socialism or any ideology close to it is not poison but an expression of legitimate political action, an option to the conventional wisdoms about the political economy.

The Magsaysay Awards

It’s the late Ramon Magsaysay’s 100th birthday anniversary. Among Filipino presidents, he has no peer in honesty and devotion to duty.

The nation honors him by conferring the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation’s Award on seven distinguished Asians for outstanding service to humanity.

The Foundation says “the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay awardees are collectively advancing causes to improve lives and correct unjust social conditions across Asia.” They will receive their awards in fitting ceremonies today, joining the 256 previous awardees in a distinct hall of fame.

We join the Filipino people and the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation in congratulating:

The revered former Senate president Jovito R. Salonga, the awardee for government service, for the integrity and substance of his long public career in service to democracy and good government.

Kim Sun Tae of Korea, the awardee for public service, for helping his fellow blind and visually impaired in South Korea.

Mahabir Pun of Nepal, the awardee for community service, for his innovative application of wireless computer technology in Nepal, particularly in the villages.

Tang Xiyang of China, the awardee for peace and international understanding, for guiding China to meet its mounting environmental crisis.

Palagummi Sainath of India, the awardee for journalism, literature and creative communication, for his commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India’s national consciousness.

Chen Guangcheng of China, the awardee for emergent leadership, for leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law. And,

Chung To of China, another awardee for emergent leadership, for his proactive response to AIDS in China.

Historical irony

Historical irony

“It’s your fault that i never got to talk to the man,” my son Francis gripes when former senator Benigno Aquino’s death is remembered, as we do today.

Francis was a grade-school kid when our family bumped into Ninoy Aquino at San Francisco’s international airport. We were flying to Bangkok, and Aquino was booked on a Boston flight. The years have blurred most of our chat that day. But we did laugh over my securing a “carrier pigeon” to sneak his article, smuggled from a Fort Bonifacio prison cell under martial law censors’ noses. A sympathetic Air India manager brought it to the editor Theh Chongkadikhij at the Bangkok Post.

In February 1973, the Post published “The Aquino Papers,” a three-part series that challenged martial law. “I will not accept President Marcos’ offer of an amnesty because I do not believe I’ve committed any crime,” Aquino wrote. “He violated our Constitution and broke our laws.”

Information Minister Francisco Tatad cabled a furious 8,000 word reply. Reprisals followed. Aquino and his cell mate, former senator Jose Diokno, were hustled into solitary confinement in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija -- and half-starved to death.

Prison guards turned Corazon Aquino and family away for 43 days. Carmen Diokno and her children received similar brushoffs. “When Cory asked Deputy Defense Minister Carmelo Barbero why, she learned it was ‘punishment’ for the Post series,” Miriam Grace Go reported.

The airport boarding call cut our talk short.

“Why didn’t you introduce me?” Francis groused as Ninoy left. “He’s the next Philippine president.”

That was not to be. While military agents “guarded” Aquino as he descended the service gangway from his China Airlines plane, a single bullet tore into his jaw.

A reporter from The Nation in Bangkok phoned for a reaction. Given United Nations restraints, all I could mumble was: “Marcos claims he heads a ‘command society.’ He has all the powers; so he has all the responsibility.”

As a numb afterthought, I added: “Manila will be renamed Aquino International Airport.”

The censored press suppressed Aquino’s arrival address aborted by that murder. Manuel L. Quezon III may someday publish a second edition of his book, “20 Speeches That Moved A Nation,” and perhaps he’ll see fit to include this speech that never was.

“I have returned of my own free will to join the ranks of those struggling to recover our rights and freedoms through non-violence,” Aquino planned to say. “I seek no confrontation.”

He flayed the supine Supreme Court justices’ abdication of the cherished right of habeas corpus (today a centerpiece in the search for “disappeared” activist Jonas Burgos and similar victims). He would have appreciated the irony in Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s plan to wield the “writ of Amparo” in order to leash some military officers who haven’t learned history’s lessons.

Aquino thought a direct appeal to the ill, isolated Marcos could usher in peaceful change. He saw the danger. “If they kill me, they’re out in two years,” he predicted.

That forecast fell short of the People Power Revolt by two years. Was this stupidity? Or principled stubbornness?

The Duke of Norfolk badgered the imprisoned Thomas More to heed Henry VIII’s demand for consent to his divorce. “Think Master More,” the Duke urged. “Indignatio principis mors est.” [“The prince’s anger is death.”]

More replied: “Is that all, my Lord? Then, there’s no difference between your Grace and me -- but I shall die today and you, tomorrow.”

Under the dictatorship’s thumb, Military Commission No. 2 found Aquino “guilty” of subversion. They sentenced him to “death by musketry.”

Censorship ensured that few heard what Aquino said after the sentencing. But Aquino, we’re told, asked the tribunal if they could recall the military judges who sentenced Andres Bonifacio. They could not. Aquino ticked off names of Gen. Mariano Noriel, Col. Agapito Banzon and others. “Today, few remember the names of those judges. But we meet in a fort that is named in honor of the very man they sentenced to death.”

This was historical irony. Bonifacio’s trial has been documented by retired Justice Abraham Sarmiento and others. And deadline-pressed laymen, like us, can only hope that scholars of Ambeth Ocampo’s competence will one day compare transcripts of these two mistrials.

Ninoy’s funeral brought two million mourners into the streets. Thousands tuned in to Radio Veritas, the only station that dared report the rites. “No umbrellas,” people chanted as rain fell. “Only Imelda uses an umbrella!” That was a jeer at cronies who trotted with parasol behind the First Lady.

When the coffin passed Rizal Park, crowds forcibly lowered the giant Philippine flag to half-staff. Did that presage People Power four years later? No one could say. All that the people clung to was the belief that the blood of martyrs is the seed of heroes.

Now a 39-year-old Northwest Airlines pilot, Francis never met Ninoy. But he sees the nation mark his death yearly. And Ninoy’s features grace our currency and stamps. Schools and streets are named after him. So is the Manila International Airport. The Aquinos never demanded a plot in the Libingan ng mga Bayani [Cemetery of Heroes]. The Marcoses have wheedled, unsuccessfully so far, for such an interment.

Sorry old questions, however, continue to fester: Who were the mastermind(s)? Why have they escaped accounting? And who remembers the judges of Military Commission No. 2? Do people give a damn?

Indeed, the “struggle of man against power,” as Czech novelist Milan Kundera once said, “is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”