Katanyagang kahihiyaan

ILALABAS ko ang artikulong ito na lumabas sa Time Asia Magazine noong November 27, 2006 na sinulat ni Andrew Marshall na nakabase sa Bangkok, Thailand.

Bagama’t nasa wikang English ito, minarapat kong ilathala ito nang buong-buo at tiyaking walang bawas o mababago sa translation. Pakikita sa artikulong ito ang common na paningin ngayon ng mga dayuhan sa ating bansa. Pinatutunayan din ng artikulong ito na sumisikat nga tayo sa ilalim ng administrasyon ni Madam Senyora Donya Gloria pero bagay na hindi ubrang ipagmalaki.

Anyway, ito po ang buong artikulo: "Rubsy Sison is waiting for someone to kill her. I met Sison a few months ago at a cemetery in Kidapawan, a town on the lawless Philippine island of Mindanao. We were praying our respects to the activists and journalists George and Maricel Vigo, who were shot dead in June in broad daylight by motorbike-riding assassins while returning home to their five children. The killers were still at large, and local reporters were braving multiple death threats by keeping the Vigo murders in the news. A friend and left-wing activist, Sison had heard that a hit man had already received a down payment to kill her. "The rest will be paid when I’m dead," she told me.

Sison, I’m relieved to say, is still alive. But the slaughter of reporters, leftists, lawyers, labor leaders, priests, students and human rights workers in the Philippines continues with a fury that recalls the darkest days of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship. Nearly 800 such people have been killed since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took power in 2001, reports the local human — rights group Karapatan, while Amnesty International recorded 51 cases of what it calls "political killings" in the first six months of this year, compared with 66 in all of 2005.

When it comes to journalists, 46 have been killed on Arroyo’s watch. The murder rate is second only to Iraq’s. Last week, seven major US companies with operations in the Philippines, including Wal-Mart and Gap, were moved to write a letter urging Arroyo to protect workers, especially union members, at their local subcontractors.

Most victims are left-wing activists, whom senior government and military officials have publicly labeled "enemies of the state" for their alleged links to the outlawed New People’s Army (NPA), a communist rebel group that has fought the government in Manila for nearly four decades. This practice of "red-labeling," says Amnesty, sends a tacit signal to the Philippine military and other security forces which many Filipinos believe are behind the killings that murdering political opponents is O.K.

Military chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon has angrily denied any military involvement in the killings. He blames them on "internal purges" in the NPA which indeed murdered hundreds of its own people in the 1980s.

Yet there is much to incriminate Esperon’s men. Last week it emerged that a suspected member of one hit squad, which killed campaigning Methodist pastor Isaias Santa Rosa in August, carried army indentification and orders for a "secret mission" from army intelligence. (The papers were discovered on the hit man after he himself was killed, apparently by friendly fire.)

Before his murder by two unidentified men last year, left wing activist Edison Lapuz told friends he was under military surveillance. And journalist George Vigo, before his death, heard from an intelligence source that his names was on an OB or "order of battle."

OBs are widely believed by activists to be code for his lists; the military denies such orders exist. In August, in response to international concern, Arroyo set up the six-member Melo Commission, led by a retired Supreme Court judge, to probe the killings.

Some bereaved families doubt its independence and have refused to testify. This distrust is symptomatic of a profound loss of faith in Arroyo herself. She is an unpopular President, plaqued by corruption scandals and slammed for her failure to improve living standards. Arroyo has condemned the killing, but she will not implicate the military even as it implicates itself.

Col. Eduardo del Rosario, head of the military antiterrorist unit called Task Force Davao admitted to TIME earlier this year that "individual commanders" might be responsible for the killings.

Investigations into these death yield hardly any results. Of 11 political murders recorded since 2001 by special police task force, arrests have been made in just three cases, with no reported convictions. Even if the killers are ever caught and prosecuted, their bosses will almost certainly remain unknown or untouchable. Last month three men were sentence to life imprisonment for the 2005 murder of a prominent antigraft journalist Marlene Esperat, shot dead while dining with her children. Rynche Garcia Arcones, 24, Esperat’s daughter, felt shortchanged. "We want the mastermind," she told a Philippine newspaper. She is unlikely to get him.

Poverty, corruption and joblessness still plaque the Philippines. Now the country must endure a Marcos — style dirty war too. Is it any surprise many Filipinos feel as if their nation is hurtling backwards?"

Hayan, kayo na ho ang humusga kung tama o mali ang sinulat ng foreign journalist na ito pero isa ho ang malinaw, ganyang kasikatan at katanyagan ang laging dala ni Madam Senyora Donya Gloria para sa atin.

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