What is the objective?

There is no arguing that a truth commission is good in theory. But questions arise when it is put into context. And here we refer to the context of Philippine history and politics. So I eagerly joined a workshop on the Truth Commission at the Ateneo School of Law in Rockwell. It was a small group, among them Cesar L. Villanueva, Dean of the law school, Annabelle Abaya, presidential adviser on the Peace Process in the Arroyo government, Sr. Cres of Task Force Detainees and Susan Granada of the Ecumenical Council and Bishop Yniguez. Carolyn Mercado of the Asia Foundation was also there. The facilitators for the workshop were Americans Wendy Luers and Adam Levy for the Project on Justice in Times of Transition.

The American project would assist the local institutional partner, the Ateneo School of Law by inviting international experts and speakers with experience in truth commissions in other countries. By the way most of these were in developing countries.

The most notable of these truth commissions was South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (I am not sure whether there has ever been a clamor for a truth commission on the Iraqi war and the graft committed in the name of a trillion dollar war.) That was my first misgiving.

The context of the Truth Commission is President Noynoy’s Executive Order No. 1 that would investigate the “alleged corruption issues in the nine-year Arroyo administration.” Looking at other truth commissions it would seem that these commissions were undertaken by countries in transition from a civil war, a dictatorship or some upheaval.

From Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA: “Truth commissions are a strategy designed for situations in which war crimes and human rights abuses have largely stopped and societies are struggling to come to terms with the tragedy. One focus is investigations to determine what actually happened, especially to people who may have just “disappeared.” There is also the challenge of determining who was responsible and assigning appropriate punishment. This requires one to consider the forces that led people to commit such crimes.”

I did not know that democratic elections such as what we had last May 10 fall under these conditions. That was my second misgiving.

The other Filipinos in the group also voiced out their fear that if the truth commission was not properly handled and had less than noble objectives, it will be just a witch-hunt and will do nothing for the poor and weak. The disagreement about the context in which the truth commission would work led to a proposal from someone in the group who has studied truth commissions extensively in other parts of the world.

She suggested that perhaps we would be better off with a parallel truth commission organized by Filipino civic groups themselves instead of one by the government. They were also surprised that the rules of the commission were decided without any consultation from affected groups particularly those working on violations of human rights.

Truth commissions all sound very nice but would it address the problem of peace and justice? By the way, there was also an objection about the work if it would concentrate on “graft and corruption” of the previous government when there were graver issues like human rights violations.  

Members of the workshop were concerned that the truth commission should deal only with graft and corruption in the Arroyo government. It is widely known that even bigger, more damaging graft and corruption were committed in other administrations including the first Aquino government. 

If the intent of the truth commission is justice then it should encompass all previous governments – to be just. Our justice system must be made to work to strengthen the rule of law and to last long after the victorious Aquino government is gone. Good governance has at least been partly achieved by the elections last May 10.

And finally, I am not sure it is good governance or the rule of law to implement Executive Order no. 1 when the legitimacy of the May 10 vote is still in question. The truth must also be known about what exactly took place then before we proceed with a truth commission against the previous government.

Citizen-protesters have written Comelec for information on all elections results and all photo images of all ballots cast. There are those who believe this is a greater violation of truth and justice.

Instead of looking into the complaints Comelec has asked the partisan “International Foundation for Electoral Systems” to confirm Smartmatic’s claims that everything was in order to stop the protests.

And yet Smartmatic’s electoral systems have been questioned in several countries as well as in the United States. This issue is at the very heart of the survival of democracy in the Philippines if we can’t even get to the bottom of what really happened in the May 10 elections.

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With the political mess and doubts on the first automated elections run by the Comelec-Smartmatic and their pcos machines, it is good to know that the issue of Charter Change is still on the table as far as the House of Representatives is concerned.

I was told that the Committee on Constitutional Amendments has met for a second time to deliberate once again on measures already passed by the committee in the 14th Congress for convening of a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments to, or revision of the Constitution.

The resolutions in question are HJR No. 3 by Rep. Victor F. Ortega et al. in which the former chairman of the committee in the 14th Congress emphasized to the new members “the need and timeliness of amending the Constitution in the present Congress” and HR No. 155 by Rep. Emil Ong who proposed the immediate adoption by the committee of a consolidated measure of all similar measures.

The Committee approved Ong’s resolution as well as the proposal of the new chairman, Rep Leo S. Campos to create study groups among the committee’s members.

Other members of the Committee are Rep. Ana Christina Go, vice-chairperson, Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco, Rep. Justin Mark “Timmy” Chipeco and Rep. Reynaldo Umali among others. There are 28 members in the committee.