Truths are often sad things

Three things make us sad about the alleged rape of a young Filipino woman by at least five US Marines who had been taking part in a recent joint military exercise with Philippine troops.

The first thing that readily makes us sad is the alleged rape itself. Rape is a beastly crime. That it was allegedly perpetrated by foreigners who had enjoyed our hospitality makes the crime even more heartbreaking.

The second sad thing about this alleged incident is that the possibility is great justice will never be served in this case. This is because America is getting increasingly notorious in paying mere lip service to justice.

The third thing that makes us sad is the fact that the alleged victim has not drawn as much sympathy from her compatriots as she should have. And that is because certain discredited groups have seized the initiative and turned the issue into a political and ideological one.

Let us go to the rape. If ever the allegations against the five American servicemen are true, then there is something terribly wrong in the armed services of that once great and highly respected country.

Even before news of the alleged rape case broke, there have already been worldwide misgivings about the conduct of American troops in foreign lands. Indeed, the world has yet to recover from the shock of what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Now, let us go to the sincerity of America in practicing what it teaches. The lines spoken by Gene Hackman, who played a US nuclear sub commander in the movie Crimson Tide, still reverberates in our ear.

In that movie, which may just as well be in real life, Hackman said " we ( America ) are here to preserve democracy, not to practice it. " What that means, in effect, is that there is no democracy at all.

To preserve democracy without practicing it is to impose the will of one over another. This is what is happening in Iraq and in many other places in the world where America chooses to impose its will.

When democracy is not practiced, all the principles that make it strong, such as justice and fair play, soon all fly out the window. How can the United States claim to be the chief exponent of world democracy when it refuses to serve justice on victims of American criminals?

Unfortunately, for all our bitching about American lack of sincerity in practicing democracy, some of our very own people are themselves not beyond practicing similar tactics that sometimes make the US so obnoxious. There are supposedly popular fronts in this country that are, in reality, agents of the communist agenda in practice. On the surface, the supposed principles that guide their advocacies are good, even noble, but by their actions are they soon exposed.

A women's rights advocacy, for instance, can hardly be argued against. In a patently unequal world, there is a real need to push the women's agenda. But is it really this that some groups are pushing or are they merely herders of warm susceptible bodies for a different end?

Any advocacy group will always find adherents among those who benefit from any claimed advocacy. But listen to the rhetoric, for the fish is always caught by the mouth. You see the same anti-American agenda clinging to the ragged skirts of ideologically exploited Filipinas.

There is yet a final sad thing to this sad episode in our national life. And it is the realization that it had to take a cruel twist of fate such as a rape for us to be confronted again by demons that, until now, we refuse to seize by the horns and smash to the ground.