Resolutions for a people tired of fooling around - CHASING THE WIND by Felipe B. Miranda

A few resolutions might be in order for a people determined to have a less unhappy new year a year from now. Readers of this column are invited to consider three items and should they find favor with them, to try and organize towards their successful implementation in the year 2001 and, realistically speaking, way beyond.

First, the ultimate Jose Velarde must be found whatever it costs this nation. Filipinos must conduct an unrelenting search for all the Jose Velardes of this country and having corralled all or most of them most hopefully within the year, find the singular Jose Velarde who has riven this nation and caused it so much undeserved grief.

All elements of the country’s official security agencies — the police, the military, the NBI and all allied services — must be tasked with this formidable tracking mission. As the nation’s highest priority undertaking, perhaps even the CPP-NPA, the MILF and the ABB might also be encouraged to join the patriotic quest. Not only the armed subversives, but all those who had been hitherto unempowered or disempowered could be rallied to the cause of finding this country’s legion of Jose Velardes. Exploited workers, discriminated women, brutalized children, marginalized cultural groups and all who have become poor from some injustice can be impressed into joining this country’s currently most democratic enterprise.

Should this impressive national alliance somehow still prove inadequate, then Filipinos must not allow for national pride — false pride, in any case — to stand in the way of success. They must not shirk from tapping the expertise and vast resources of the world’s renowned intelligence services in locating the Jose Velardes of this country. MI5, Scotland Yard, the Surété, the FBI and the Mossad, among many others, might be formally or informally requested for assistance in this critical undertaking.

Second, assuming a fairly successful hunt to have transpired, Filipinos must resolve to deal with the ultimate Jose Velarde summarily and irreversibly such that its kind will never again be able to rise and reproduce for a thousand years, not even if this particular Jose Velarde’s number turned out to be 666, prominently displayed on it.

Third, the rationale for the hunt and the lessons learned from hunting the ultimate Jose Velarde must be compiled in a national program for the young, those who eventually must be entrusted with the responsibility of vigilantly guarding against this heinous creature being resurrected in any form. This program must be a significant element of the formal educational system especially at the most elementary levels, but it must also be deliberately reflected in the nation’s literature, songs, poems, dances, paintings and sculptures.

An essential part of this program for intergenerational inspiration must be the idea that a nation capable of outrage is a nation worth living for. Aligned with this commitment is the belief that indeed a nation can only be as good as its ability to remember and, as regards some of those memories, its ability also to resolve — Never again!

For now, the beginning of a new year, first things first. Find the Jose Velardes, locate the Jose Velarde and, being assured of his true number, give him the summary and irreversible justice he so richly deserves.

Would Filipinos be up to keeping such resolutions as the three outlined above? Back in February 1986, so many of them said so fortissimo. In 2001, so many more are repeating the same refrain with apparently as much gusto.