Can GMA do it?

It was former Senate President Jovito Salonga who called my attention to the front page article in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune. The report by IHT/New York Times Correspondent Donald Greenlees, had been datelined Cebu City.

The headline was succinct: "ARROYO VOWS TO END POLITICAL DEATHS."

I confessed, although I have a subscription to the IHT, I hadn’t read the newspaper yet. In any event, referring to the story, Jovy Salonga asked me: "Can she do it?" That is, end political killings?

Of course I had no answer to that, nor had anybody else in the conference room I’ll wager – since this is a very "surprising" country. By this, I mean that almost everything comes as a surprise, whether it is success or failure.

I did not voice my reservation at the gathering that, if the murders and assassinations were being conducted deliberately by the military and/or the police, I’m afraid La Presidenta couldn’t, except in some token way, curb her soldiers and policemen.

In a sense, as everybody knows, the Armed Forces and, in a lesser way, the Philippine National Police are the elements which keep a President and Commander-in-Chief in "power." Just consider what happened to her predecessor, and now her prisoner, ex-President Joseph "Erap" Estrada. As soon as television showed Erap’s generals, and, in a final stroke of irony, his "most trusted" Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Angelo T. Reyes, mounting the entablado at the EDSA DOS "People Power" uprising to declare they had withdrawn their support from their Commander-in-Chief Estrada, President Erap himself – watching the televised balimbing drama in Malacañang – reportedly exclaimed: "Patay na ako!" ("I’m dead.") And so he was, politically.

As Erap was to say much later: "I never dreamed I would go from President to prisoner in just one day!"

Even our much-admired, real "People Power" revolution at the EDSA barricades in front of Camps Crame and Aguinaldo in February 1986, would have been crushed by armored cars, Marine bayonets, artillery, and helicopter gunships, had not most of the military, and subsequently the police, joined the ranks of the rebels. In short, they deserted their "lawful" (by his own February Comelec count) President, Ferdinand E. Marcos, and made common cause with Johnny Ponce Enrile, General Fidel V. Ramos, His late Political Turbulence, Jaime Cardinal Sin, and us civilian barricaders, to topple the dictator.

The Americans sent helicopters to pluck Macoy and family out of the Palace just a whoop and a holler before angry, rampaging mobs, tore across the walls to scalp Marcos and attack Imeldific and the First Family. They, of course, brought him to Hawaii – not Paoay (as Marcos subsequently claimed he thought was the destination planned by his American rescuers). He ended up dying in Makiki Heights, Hawaii, a couple of years later.

It’s fruitless to argue that our military and police don’t play a role in our democracy, but at times, mutineers and putschists with messianic or self-serving agendas, attempt to grab for power themselves.

And so, former Senate President Salonga’s half-sarcastic, certainly sardonic query has to remain unanswered, until we see results, or fail to see any results stemming from GMA’s declared pledge in Cebu.

* * *

We happened to be in the 13th floor Burgundy conference room of the Meralco building in Ortigas Center yesterday afternoon for our final meeting of the Board of Judges of the Gawad Haydee Yorac Award. A winner of that prestigious award has been chosen, but this will be announced later.

The Chairman of the Board of Judges is, of course, Jovy. The Vice-Chairman is former Prime Minister Cesar E. A. Virata – yep, we had a Prime Minister during the Marcos era, which was years before Speaker Joe de Venecia.

Other Judges are Supreme Court Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago; retired Justice Jose C. Vitug; Meralco Chairman and CEO Manuel "Manolo" Lopez; Mr. Jesus P. Francisco, President and COO of Meralco; former Comelec Chairman Christian S. Monsod ("One Voice"), who was also Chairman of the Search and Screening Committee; Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, Mr. Elpi O. Cuna, Vice-President and Director, Corporate Communication, Meralco; and Yours Truly MVS.

Absent from the final deliberation were retired Justice Abraham Sarmiento and Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna, both of whom are abroad. Okay, I’m glad it’s over.

Selecting the best of the best from a catalogue of worthy finalists was certainly a chore. Mabuhay to all of them! (By golly, I’m beginning to sound like a politician).

* * *

Here’s what reporter Greenlees wrote from Cebu:

"Confronting an outcry from human rights activists over hundreds of unsolved politically-motivated murders and kidnappings, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines said she would appoint a retired Supreme Court Judge to investigate the crimes and grant him – far-reaching powers."

"He would have all the powers that can emanate from the president," Arroyo said in an extensive interview here Friday. ‘And if he so agrees, we will submit in Congress a bill to give him more powers,’ she added.

Human rights groups and political opposition figures . . . estimate that more than 700 political activists, church workers, union organizers and journalists have been murdered since 2001, the year Arroyo took office. The vast majority of these crimes remain unsolved. Rights groups say extrajudicial killings and kidnappings are an integral part of military efforts to quash dissent and end several rebellions in the provinces, particularly by the Communist New People’s Army."

"Arroyo tried to disarm critics in a July 24 state of the nation speech by condemning the killings ‘in the harshest possible terms.’ But her response to date has been dismissed as inadequate and ad hoc; she set up a police task force and ordered investigators to solve 10 crimes in 10 weeks."

"The issue of political violence is gaining increasing international attention and has taken on special significance as Arroyo tries to turn around the image of the Philippines as a country beset by security problems. Her administration is trying to attract foreign investors willing to develop the country’s extensive resource wealth, much of it in regions that have long been affected by conflict."

"In an interview while attending a conference of business leaders from Asia-Pacific Cooperation forum economies, Arroyo said she had given her police and military chiefs a clear message over the killings: ‘I want them solved. I want them stopped.’ "

This article went on and on – but you get the gist of the International Herald Tribune’s indictment.

These are tough, challenging words indeed – and the statistics, if accurate, are grim. The Greenlees dispatch makes La GMA look like a malevolent queen (worse than Queen Elizabeth Regina of England who beheaded her enemies and "traitors" in the Tower of London, as her own mother – Anne Boleyn – earlier beheaded by dear, old dad, King Henry VIII. Henry obviously believed that the headman’s axe was swifter than getting a divorce).

Otherwise, La Gloria is made to appear helpless, a wimp unable to control her military Gauleiters – if, indeed, the armed forces is behind the murders and assassinations. Or like somebody being upheld in power by the military "on a throne of bayonets."

To sum up, the accusation is direct. Betcha neither the IHT nor New York Times would directly level such an accusation, or insinuation, against Hu Jin-tao of China, who already arrested one of their correspondents.

This is, alas, a world in which, as Lord Acton’s only quotable line stated, "Power corrupts . . ." Yet, absolute power, in truth, not only corrupts absolutely – but is feared and respected, even by – or especially by – the foreign press.

That Greenlees could openly hurl such an attack at GMA and her government – yet still be wined and dined (does he only drink cola?) in our land – is proof, however faltering, that there’s still something to be said about our democracy. As one belonging to the endangered species of journalists – I’ve been jailed here at home, kicked around, and expelled, incidentally from three other countries – I can only say it goes with the territory.

Jovy Salonga is right to question GMA’s ability, even if indirectly, to solve the nasty, bloody problem of our Killing Fields. But this is an endeavor which all of us must join – not content ourselves with jeering, or sneering from the sidelines.

Let justice be done though the heavens fall, is an old legal maxim. And sanamagan, the heavens are falling!