Justice and reconciliation
If national healing was the objective of the administration in granting pardon to one of the soldiers serving two life terms for the murders of Benigno Aquino Jr. and Rolando Galman, it doesn’t look like it’s about to achieve its goal.
The heirs of the late senator, led by former President Corazon Aquino, have long demanded that the convicts first tell the truth. I don’t think they expect the convicts to identify the mastermind — the soldiers were too low in rank to know this for sure, and the Marcos regime had perfected the art of compartmentalization.
What the convicts can admit is that at least one of them, not Rolando Galman, had fired the gun that killed the most prominent challenger to the rule of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. This would bolster suspicions that the assassination was not the handiwork of a lone communist hired gun — Galman — but the result of a conspiracy hatched by powerful individuals in the Marcos regime, some of whom are still around and enjoying their vast wealth.
Yesterday Aquino’s heirs described as another “injustice” the pardon granted by President Arroyo to former Master Sergeant Pablo Martinez.
Some quarters also wondered why only one of the soldiers was freed. There were two theories: the President was merely testing the waters for an eventual mass pardon in connection with the double murder, or distracting the public from a looming pardon for a political supporter convicted of a serious crime.
The soldiers have rotted in prison for the past 24 years without changing their story. Either there is truly no other truth apart from what they have already said, or someone with enormous wealth and the right political connections — and therefore enormous clout — has made sure they will stick forever to their story, which guarantees that the finger of blame will never go beyond Rolando Galman.
For those who have noticed how even the president’s absolute power to grant pardons has been turned into a political tool, even if it leads to a travesty of justice, it is hard to buy the story that Martinez was freed chiefly in the spirit of Christmas, on purely humanitarian grounds.
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Filipinos are notorious for being too quick to forgive and forget. In the case of the Aquino-Galman slays, the public attitude is more like fatigue and surrender — a sense that the complete picture will never be put together.
There will be no forgiving and forgetting here — only a sense of certainty that all those convicts will take their common secret to the grave. As in many other serious crimes, the nation will find no closure.
Compare this with the way other countries are confronting their ugly past, and trying to achieve reconciliation with justice.
The Cambodians have finally arrested and started the trial of Khmer Rouge leaders responsible for the genocide that left more than two million people dead.
Seeing what’s left of the Khmer Rouge leadership — all of them now old men, some of them frail and pleading for mercy from the court — is another chilling reminder of the banality of evil.
This could not have been possible without confronting the truth, admitting the worst sins of apartheid and imposing appropriate punishment. The South Africans set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose mandate is to promote national unity, reconciliation and healing.
It probably helped that a prominent victim of apartheid, Nelson Mandela, was ready to extend forgiveness, compassion and understanding toward his former tormentors.
But the process of reconciliation with justice is long and difficult. Prosecution of apartheid-era offenders continues, with leniency or amnesty granted to those who are willing to divulge information that would lead to the truth.
Coincidentally, on the eve of the pardon for Pablo Martinez, South African President Thabo Mbeki addressed their parliament, inviting representatives of different political parties to assist him in his deliberations on the grant of presidential pardon.
Mbeki, Mandela’s chosen successor, said there are 1,062 applications for presidential pardon in connection with apartheid-era political violence.
He opened his speech with a reminder that on
He also recalled the abduction by the Security Police of four suspected guerrillas of the African National Congress, who were beaten, electrocuted and bludgeoned to death, with the remains blown up in an effort to hide the grisly crime. The remains were later unearthed and identified through DNA tests.
The families of the victims, Mbeki said, have not asked for vengeance or retribution but want a process of healing.
“They have requested that all of us,” Mbeki told the National Assembly, “should sustain the memory of the heroes and heroines in everything we do.”
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Many Filipinos were also beaten, electrocuted and bludgeoned to death, with their remains obliterated, during the Marcos dictatorship.
We don’t remember them as heroes or heroines. They have been obliterated from the national consciousness. This has to be one of the biggest reasons why we continue to see Filipinos, including journalists, being tortured and murdered and disappearing without a trace.
We not only have failed to make key officials of the Marcos regime account for the abuses of the dictatorship, we have also allowed them to return to the social mainstream and revive their political dynasties, unrepentant, enjoying their wealth and influence.
The only ones who have been made to pay for a major crime of the Marcos regime are the soldiers convicted of the Aquino-Galman murders.
As Pablo Martinez walked free yesterday, compassion made Filipinos wish him luck in rebuilding his life. At the same time, his freedom left a sense of injustice that will always stand in the way of national reconciliation.
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