This commentary
serves to introduce the excellent column of Ana Marie Pamintuan of The
Philippine Star.
This is
particularly addressed to my colleagues in the pre-departure area, the
not-so-young who are keenly aware of what transpired during the Martial Law
years and lived through other horrors thereafter.
From the time we Filipinos found
ourselves free from colonial rule to be on our own, successive Philippine
presidents have led us gradually down to perdition. We hit a snag during
Martial Law years and exalted in the successful People Power Revolution hoping
the spiral had been halted.
But then the prevailing
feudalism and political dynasties were resurrected and corruption continued
unabated gathering momentum. People power vainly tried to intervene in more
than one instance, but our damaged electorate put back in power the same feudal
families. The rich got richer and the poor became poorer!
Then, out of
the blue, a neophyte from the same feudal mould and following the tried and
true political route, was elected president. To everyone’s surprise, through
his heart-felt battle cry of treading the straight path, he has since put the
Philippines on the way to become an Asian Tiger. Unfortunately, his efforts
have stirred up enough dust and dirt that forced the traditional feudal lords
to be in offensive mode and again ready to negate whatever gains have already been
attained.
After the
Supertyphoon Yolanda’s fury, foreigners assisting survivors were impressed saying
that our country is a country of ever smiling and resilient people. It’s a good
tourism gimmick, but it can indicate a negative image – we easily forget.
This short
memory lapses seem to have been the destiny of this country for decades ever
since Filipinos took the helm of nation-building in their own hands. For some
time going into the ’60s, the Philippines was considered the shining star of
the East.
Then, for some
reason, our country overnight found itself as the sick man of Asia. Even
shamefully, in recent years, we’d heard of Vietnam and Laos being praised for
their vibrant progression towards economic salvation. That was long after the
world acknowledged the emergence of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and China as
economic powers.
We have had our
share of colorful presidents, who have tried every kind of recipe in the book
to cook up a path of economic emancipation, including holding midnight drinking
cabinets and lengthening their stay in government over the regular prescribed
period.
They say six
years is too short for a good president, and too long for a bad one. I’d like
to think that time is not really the big issue here.
Here lies the crux of the matter: it
should be the mindset of both our elected officials and those that elect them
that a public post is more than a position of trust. We must have people in
governance who will truly work for the country’s 100 million people’s welfare.
Why do we never
learn?
There are so
many reasons. One lies in our educational system which has diminished not just
scholarship but excellence. There is less emphasis now on the humanities, in
the study of the classics which enables us to have a broader grasp of our past
and the philosophies of this past. We envy Hindus and Buddhists who have in
their religion philosophy and ancestor worship that build in the believer a
continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of
a nation — memory.
We even allow disgraced
criminals to be recycled in government service.
The intelligent
person is aware of his shortcomings. He is humble enough to ask the opinion of
those who know more than him on particular subjects. If he is a government
hierarch, he will surround himself with advisers who can supply him with
guidance and background possessing more knowledge, experience and wisdom than
him. Such an official is bound to commit fewer mistakes because he knows
himself. But, of course, how can he get there unless ironically he had played
along with predecessors.
This is how we
show our perennial weakness for short-sightedness and apathy. Patience and
fortitude have been traits that Filipinos take pride in - even to a fault. We
say “bahala na” suffering incompetence and shabby work without a whimper of
protest. We smile shrugging off misery that normally would have made other
peoples scream and run amuck.
Again, the
world looks at the Philippines as being at the brink of joining other emerging
economies. This SHOULD be flattering to ALL Filipinos. We are given a
head-start that is grounded on something substantial that will really form the
basis for future growth.
Needless to
say, we have to unify and get our act together this time. The reality is that
if we bungle this opportunity, the chance to move forward may not come again in
a very long time. Think Filipino! You have a right to know and keep remembering.
The right to know what happened
SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan (The Philippine Star) |
Updated January 29, 2014
A generation born
after the people power revolt in February 1986 has entered adulthood. What does
this generation see?
There’s people power fatigue, born of disappointment over
the unfulfilled promises of two unfinished revolutions. These days people would
rather not remember EDSA II, and every year the crowd at the commemoration of
the 1986 revolt becomes sparser.
There’s Ferdinand Marcos’ widow, the enduring half of the
conjugal dictatorship, serving a fresh term as an honorable member of the House
of Representatives. Our taxes continue to pay for her upkeep, including a
coterie of bodyguards.
Ditto for their only son and Marcos’ namesake, now an honorable
senator of the republic. Bongbong Marcos has not ruled out a run for the
presidency, following in the footsteps of dad.
The clan remains in firm control of Marcos’ bailiwick,
Ilocos Norte, where the current governor is eldest child Imee.
A shrine has been built in honor of Marcos while the family
waits for official permission to transfer his well-preserved remains to the
heroes’ cemetery.
Enforcers of the martial law regime, during which thousands
of political dissidents, communist rebels and left-leaning activists were
detained without charges, kidnapped, tortured, executed and “disappeared,” were
never made to account for their atrocities.
A generation has grown up with little or no awareness of
stories of waterboarding Pinoy style, of electric shocks applied to the
genitals, of being raped and repeatedly beaten and burned with cigarettes.
The man who signed all the so-called ASSOs – arrest, search
and seizure orders – has not lost a single bid for Congress, and is currently
the most senior member of the Senate.
Only the members of the Aviation Security Command team that
greeted Ninoy Aquino upon his return from exile in 1983 have been sent to
prison for his assassination. To this day we don’t know who gave the order to
kill. The Aquinos are still waiting for one of the soldiers to reveal if a
grievously wounded Ninoy, instead of being rushed to a hospital, was finished
off in the van that took him on a leisurely, hour-long drive around Manila.
Will we ever know the truth? Are we still interested in
knowing?
* * *
Perhaps forgiving and forgetting is the Christian thing to
do. It can prevent crippling divisiveness and foster national unity to hasten
progress. Bongbong Marcos has said it’s time to move on.
But forgiving and forgetting, and the failure to hold anyone
accountable for atrocious human rights violations and world-class corruption
can also foster impunity. We’ve been warned that the sins and errors of the
past, if forgotten, tend to be repeated.
Our failure to bring to justice those responsible for the
abuses of a dictatorship has to be one of the principal reasons for continuing
widespread corruption, both petty and large-scale, and extrajudicial executions
nearly 28 years after the collapse of the Marcos regime.
Law enforcement is so weak Pinoy voters actually like
politicians who make no excuses about their readiness to take shortcuts in
dealing with criminals and other troublemakers.
We not only have failed to bring human rights violators and
plunderers to justice, we have also rewarded them richly with high office. And
we’re not talking only of the Marcoses and their cronies.
* * *
Corazon Aquino often said she wanted reconciliation with
justice. We got neither, unless you consider shifting political alliances,
forged out of expediency, to be reconciliation.
There is such a thing as transitional justice, but it seems
we skipped the process after the fall of Marcos. Pinoys probably thought seeing
him die in exile was enough and it was time to move on. His loyal military
chief Fabian Ver is also dead.
Dictatorship and oppression are not unique to the
Philippines. Several countries with similar experiences, however, have managed
to bring former oppressors to justice, or continue the process of holding
people accountable for human rights violations and plunder.
“It’s a long process,” Sebastian Rosales of Argentina’s
Human Rights Division told me the other night.
Rosales is in Manila together with about 30 participants
from about seven countries, attending a weeklong regional workshop on “dealing
with the past.”
The workshop is sponsored by the Swiss government in
cooperation with the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights. CHR chief Loretta
Ann Rosales told me they are working mainly on documenting individual stories
of human rights abuses, initially focusing on the Marcos regime.
An archive that will be set up can be accessed by the public
and used to develop a curriculum so the history of martial law can be taught in
schools. Education Secretary Armin Luistro has told the CHR his department will
be involved in the project.
“People have a right to know what happened,” Jonathan Sisson
told me. Sisson is the senior adviser for dealing with the past (yes, it’s an
official designation) in the Swiss foreign affairs department’s human security
division.
* * *
It’s the same in South Africa, where holding the human
rights offenders during apartheid accountable is an “unfinished business,”
according to another participant in the workshop, Yasmin Sooka, a lawyer and
expert in transitional justice.
Sooka, executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights
in her country, served as commissioner of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. The late Nelson Mandela created the commission, which was chaired
by another Nobel Peace laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Mandela managed to strike a delicate balance between
national reconciliation and justice when he assumed power. But his country’s
search for truth, accountability and justice, and South Africans’ desire to
come to terms with their past, continued beyond his presidency.
Not too long ago, Filipinos aimed for those same goals. Etta
Rosales, herself a victim of martial law, believes it’s not too late to revive
interest in the pursuit of those goals.
The process starts with the truth, by letting the victims
tell their story.
