Pardon mutinous soldiers, punish ill-trained police

How can President Noynoy Aquino grant amnesty to Antonio Trillanes and other rebel soldiers when just the day before, he approved charges against some civilian and police officials whose only fault was that they failed to resolve the August 23 hostage crisis properly?

Sure, their failure to resolve the hostage crisis resulted in the deaths of eight Chinese tourists and embarrassed the Philippines before the world. But that failure pales in comparison to the deliberate attempts by the rebel soldiers to overthrow the government.

Just because the government that Trillanes and the rebel soldiers sought to overthrow was that of the hugely unpopular Gloria Macapagal Arroyo doesn’t mean their act of rebellion is more less reprehensible and more pardonable than a failure to resolve a hostage crisis peacefully.

Trillanes and the rebel soldiers committed high crimes against the Constitution and the State. They broke the chain of command, the rebelled against their commander-in-chief, and they disgraced their uniform.

When they staged their mutinous and rebellious acts, they endangered the lives of people, destroyed property, shook the economy, and cast a very ugly picture of the Philippines before the rest of the world.

That Arroyo was widely perceived as corrupt did not give them any reason to do what they did. If they had grievances against Arroyo, they should all have resigned first and then screamed to their hearts content.

But to use the resources of the State against the State, while continuing to draw salaries as professional soldiers from the taxes people pay in order to be secure in their lives, is a treacherous stab in the back of Filipinos in whose name they committed their treachery.

I am not saying that these soldiers cannot be pardoned, since it is always the object of any society to reform those willing to be reformed after committing transgressions. But to pardon them and then punish those who committed far less serious offenses, if at all, is unfair.

Those who are being charged in connection with the hostage crisis may have made a very bad job out of the negotiations and the rescue attempt. But they never intended to harm anyone. If they failed, it was because their skills were sorely limited by other shortcomings.

These shortcomings are not the fault of those Aquino wants to be charged. They are the shortcomings of a government that has not seen fit to be proactive in its dealings with crisis. What happened to the hostage crisis was the fault of a perpetually reactive government.

The decision of Aquino to grant amnesty to the rebel soldiers sent very confusing signals to everybody. If there is one clear message that he has sent, however, it is that he has this great willingness to take us anywhere so long as it goes in the opposite direction of Arroyo.

Because Trillanes and the rebel soldiers rebelled against Arroyo, Aquino thinks the crime they committed was far less grievous than the hostage crisis failure that happened during his watch and over which he was greatly embarrassed.

Aquino cannot pretend to be fired by an urge to be conciliatory in granting amnesty to the rebel soldiers if he cannot be fired by the same urge toward everybody else. One cannot attempt to reconcile and unite the nation if one has to be selective about it.

To say one wants reconciliation and unity and extend one’s hand only to a favored and select few achieves neither. In fact, if Aquino is truly what he pretends to be, he should have started much closer to home. He should have swept the backyard of Hacienda Luisita first.