In Mourning

Two current major issues are damaging the country. The first is the continuing killings of activists and journalists, which have worried and enraged the international community. The other is the reported leakage on nursing board examinations held last June.

To civil libertarians and human rights advocates such as the UK-based Amnesty International, no persons deserve to die for their political affiliation. But as we are writing this column, a farmer-leader in Obando, Bulacan was reportedly killed allegedly for his affiliation with a farmers’ group, which the military had identified with the Left.

“It should be a deep embarrassment to the government that people in the Philippines cannot freely exercise their rights of political expression and association,” said Tim Parritt, Southeast Asia researcher at Amnesty International in a report that came out August 16.

But a “deep embarrassment” apparently is not part of the conscience of those behind Ms Arroyo’s one-billion-peso campaign to finish off the 37-year old communist insurgency in this Southeast Asian nation. Killings, maiming, and sowing fear continue. So for fear of their lives, villagers in Central Luzon and Cagayan Valley are now rushing to get community tax certificates or cedulas, lest they be mistaken for being New People’s Army guerrillas.

The anti-insurgency drive should be directed at the NPA guerillas, who are definitely armed. And the fighting should be done in the hills. But spare the simple farmer who toils and helps produce food for this agricultural country. Spare the community-based doctor who opted to serve the helpless and the needy; otherwise, he would take up nursing and join the legions of Filipinos leaving the country.

Sadly, the sitting ducks of this anti-insurgency campaign are those legitimate community-based leaders of farmers, workers, indigenous peoples and students, who are exercising their constitutional rights of dissent and peaceful assembly. This worries Amnesty International and even the international church community, which has also denounced the killings of pastors, church workers and lay leaders involved in justice and peace ministries.

Given this situation, some members of the diplomatic community are contemplating of advising their investors not to do business in the Philippines, according to sources. This is akin to some international campaign not to investment in Burma because of its iron-fist rule and widespread human rights violations. The message of the diplomatic community for Ms Arroyo is clear -- the rule of law, and not of men, should be restored in this supposed democracy in Southeast Asia. Otherwise, they won’t do business with us.

The leakage in the last nursing board examinations is also giving us a bad name. It continues to help project the image that we are a nation of cheats. Honesty, as one song says, is such a lonely word, which may be true to many of us from the lowly to the mighty in this troubled land. For its rarity, a news story about an ordinary cab driver returning a wallet or package left by a passenger gets front page or prominent air time. If honesty is part of our psyche and everyday lives, an honest taxi driver should be as common as the common tao. And this should not be news any more.

Honesty is also a lonely word among those who hold power. We have yet to clear the air about unanswered questions over alleged electoral fraud in 2004. These unanswered questions contained in the “Hello Garci” tapes and followed by the “I’m-sorry-for-lapses-in-judgment” presidential confession continue to put into question the legitimacy of Ms Arroyo.

These lingering unanswered questions about Ms Arroyo’s legitimacy are holding her down. Unless these questions are sufficiently cleared, it would be hard for this country to move on. Unfortunately, those who continue to question and challenge Ms Arroyo’s legitimacy under the democratic principles of free expression and right of dissent now fear for their lives. We thought Ferdinand Marcos was long dead and gone in 1986. Apparently, the ghost of those dark martial law years has resurrected from the dead. Now we are again in mourning, and the international community sympathizes with our loss – the loss of our democracy.