He thinks he’s funny but he’s filthy. Instead of upholding right, as his title Secretary of Justice requires, he tramples on it. He hasn’t lifted a finger in the 200 killings and kidnappings of militants, journalists and judges since 2001. He couldn’t even solve the Nida Blanca murder. Why? Because he’s on the side of criminals, not victims. “Secretary of Injustice” befits him.
Raul Gonzalez’s mean streak surfaced anew in the wake of murderer Claudio Teehankee Jr.’s release from jail last week. No, he wasn’t irked that prisons officers under him had let the convict out in the dead of night. He was peeved because the mom of the 16-year-old lass Teehankee had shot in the face in 1991 is decrying sneakiness in the presidential pardon.
“Go appeal to Jesus Christ,” Gonzalez mocked the mom now living in Sweden to ease the pain of losing a child to a maniac. He heads the Board of Pardon and Parole that slipped Teehankee’s discharge into the paper pile on the President’s desk. He loathes queries about his decisions, as if appeals aren’t part of the justice system. He keeps saying it’s the President’s constitutional power to pardon convicts. So if the mom insists on protesting Teehankee’s freedom, Gonzalez added, “she can go jump in the lake; very wide naman ang North Sea.” What more venom would he spew once the moms of the 21-year-old man killed and 18-year-old boy maimed that same night speak up too?
Crass and insensitive, Gonzalez doesn’t realize he is again putting the mom through the horror Teehankee had inflicted. Or maybe he does. He professes to know it all. The mom had fought hard to get high and mighty Teehankee indicted. It took only a line to Gonzalez, through his brother Manuel as justice undersecretary, to get him out of confinement. Teehankee will forever be etched in history as the psycho who had ruined the name of his father, a chief justice. Gonzalez does not need to try very hard to earn a niche beside him.
Gonzalez echoes Executive Sec. Ed Ermita hissing that the mom had agreed in 1999 to not contest Teehankee’s future filing for clemency. But what she signed was a quitclaim on the court-ordered indemnity, when the Teehankee family turned over the killer’s house. The document included a pro-forma line that the payment meant she would not press anymore civil damages. It did not cover the criminal aspect. That is, Teehankee should serve his sentence. And any commutation must abide by the rules: genuine remorse; formal notice to the victim or family, prosecutor, and judge; full rehabilitation; and acceptance by his old community.
Not one of those was met. Teehankee sat out less than half his term. He couldn’t have repented, not while enjoying the perks of a VIP inmate — studio with TV, ref, air-con, queen-size bed and private shower. “Notice” came by way of a newspaper ad, listing dozens of convicts Gonzalez’s team was considering to free. Rehab and re-acceptance by Makati neighbors? All Teehankee underwent prior to release was physical checkup, not psychiatric treatment for homicidal lunacy. How can Dasmariñas Village residents embrace him, when they’re cringing in fear of a recent killer on the loose of two-dozen caged cats?
Gonzalez cannot back up his release of Teehankee with valid reasons. That’s why he resorts to being his crude self.
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Another activist has gone missing, reportedly abducted by security forces. As always, the police-military stance is who cares.
James Balao, 47, was on his way home to La Trinidad, Benguet, Sept. 17 when his family and colleagues lost all contact with him. They suspect a covert military operation because of Balao’s link to the Cordillera People’s Alliance, which he co-founded. Among his tasks in that NGO is to fight for the downtrodden against powerful politico-economic forces that misuse the military as private army. Balao is also president of the Oclupan clan of Chinese-Japanese migrants to the Cordilleras in the early 1900s.
The army’s knee-jerk reply is to deny knowledge of the seizure while rejecting pleas to open its camp gates to search parties. This violates the so-called three-day rule. It was agreed at Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s 2007 conference on torture-abduction that missing militants usually survive if located within three days inside camps.
Balao’s case leaves another black mark on Philippine justice. The US embassy listed it in a recent human rights report to the State department. Amnesty International called on Malacañang to act, for a change. Baguio city hall, Trinidad municipal hall, Mountain Province capitol, Commission on Human Rights, U.P.-Baguio, and various civic groups are circulating petitions for the authorities to show some concern. (To sign up, go to the link: www.cpaphils.org.)
A man’s life is at stake. But a military spokesman shrugged, sneering that it’s only propaganda to oust Gloria Arroyo. Duh.
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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com