The Masacre of the Filipino Soul

The righteous indignation of people on the Basilan Fiasco should not only be tolerated. Indeed it is what every right-thinking Filipino should be feeling now. Let the authorities investigate, let the peace panel call for sobriety, let the MILF pontificate about the actions taken by their combatants. The fact remains that 19 soldiers lay needlessly dead after an ambush.

Consider:

1. The AFP is the legitimate armed organization of the Philippines. Last I heard, all of Mindanao is still part of the Philippines. Our AFP does not need to get approval to serve a lawful warrant of arrest to a fugitive from the law,

2. Let us leave religion or God out of this. This is not about Muslims or Christians. This is not about addressing the plight of our minority brothers. Their plea for justice and right to self-determination remains a valid issue. This is all about terrorism and lawlessness - and the need to deal with them decisively and permanently now. Get terrorism out of the picture and it will be easier to talk about, and actually realize, peace and development. We may even be able to achieve it in our lifetime,

3. Let us stop sugar-coating the Peace Talks. Let us call a spade a spade. The MILF did not even bother to deny the attack, and appears to be justifying it even. I must agree with those that call for the suspension, not abandonment, of the peace talks until the MILF deliver on their end of the bargain. How can we talk peace with people who wait for every opportunity to pounce and stab us in the back? It's like talking with someone with our hands tied while they hold a sword in their back. Let the MILF walk the talk first, then we can talk peace again.

I am a peace-loving person, but fight if we must if that is what is needed to achieve it. Like a masterful surgeon, the AFP must learn to remove these "cancers" without adversely affecting the healthy parts of the body - our country. Our military strategists are not without blame either. They ovbiously failed to see ahead and plan for this incursion into enemy territory. There is a lot of room for improvement. Our AFP cannot be always the villains, and perceived to be stupid and incompetent at that.

There is no easy way towards peace, and we cannot just sit by the sides while all these killings slowly but surely desensitize our sense of right or wrong. When the culture of impunity merges with the culture of indifference, there is no way to go but the pits.

I mourn the most for my Pilipinas. Our Pilipinas.

Pambansang Libingan ng Pilipinas

Nine days after the self-inflicted death of Angelo Reyes, many are still doubting if it was really appropriate that he was buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. The Bayani in its name demands the highest standards of heroism from people who are privileged to call it their final resting place. While many of those who are interred there are authentic heroes by their own rights, either because they lived heroic lives or because they died as martyrs for the motherland, a claim to heroism is something that is always subject to debate and public perception. Unfortunately, Angelo Reyes' claim to heroism will be subject to debate for many years to come.

More unfortunately, the Marcos family and their loyalists are now using the decision of the government to allow the burial of Angelo Reyes at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani to resurrect their demand to have Ferdinand Marcos buried there as well. True, both men served their country for most of their lives, but their claims to heroism are also both not universally accepted. This is not the first case, and will definitely not be the last, of burials in this hallowed place being questioned. If it is the time of Gloria Arroyo to go, will she also be entitled to her own plot at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani as a former president even if the trails of massive corruption during her presidency lead to her very doorsteps?

These arguments can be stopped once and for all by splitting the current Libingan ng Mga Bayani into two separate cemeteries. Uniformed men and women who died in the line of duty and martyrs who gave up their lives for the country should be interred at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani because by their very death, they have irrevocably and unquestionably earned the nation's gratitude as true heroes. They are bayanis who deserve their place of honor at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani.

Presidents, Chiefs of Staff, National Artists, Chief Justices, Senate Presidents, Speakers of the House, War Veterans and other important public figures can be buried in a separate Pambansang Libingan ng Pilipinas (National Cemetery of the Philippines) where the criteria for entitlement can be more objective. A law can be passed defining who are entitled to interment at the Pambansang Libingan, and the deceased can be spared the judgment of public perception.

If Ferdinand Marcos is interred at the Pambansang Libingan, it will not be because of his claim to heroism but because he was a President of this country and the position alone entitled him to a burial in the national cemetery - nothing more, nothing less. In the United States, there is little debate, if any at all, about burials at the Arlington National Cemetery because it does not lay any claim to having only heroes being laid to rest there. We should do the same here to stop all needless squabble on who deserves to be laid in a hero's tomb.

The Filipino Holocaust

It is pathetic that a lot of people would rather let Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her cabal of tradpols continue their merry plunder of this nation for the reason that "eh sino naman ang papalit?" It is the same reason used by those who kill themselves - that the future does not hold anything for them anymore. But do we really know what the future holds for us? Kick out GMA and her gang of thieves now and we can have either a better government or another bad one, even worse. But at least we have a 50-50 chance of getting a good government. Let her continue her remorseless and guiltless reign of plunder and Bangladesh will be far better off than us by the time they are through raiding our national coffers. Give her until 2010 and she can use all the resources of government and the military to make sure the next regime will be friendly to her. That is, if she will not find a way to perpetuate herself in power. She did it in 2004, what's stopping her from doing it again in 2010?

Even more pathetic are government officials and other sycophants daring critics of the wrongdoings of this administration to go to court and show proof. My foot! Where do they expect us to go to? To the Ombudsman who is the classmate and good friend of the First Gentleman? To the Department of (in)Justice whose Secretary is the president of the GMA For President Forever Movement? Or to the Supreme Court whose majority members do not mind being the laughing stock of the entire legal profession just so they can please the president who appointed them? So pray tell me, where do we run to for succor? And what evidence are we talking about here? If you are stealing US$130 million from the government, will you knowingly leave evidences on your trail? If I planned for months to murder someone and finally got to do it, will I walk around with the death weapon on my hand? Will I leave my fingerprints on the crime scene? These people think we Filipinos are a bunch of nincompoops who will take their web of lies and deceit line, hook and sinker. I beg to disagree!

GMA and her accomplices may be having their cake and eating it too as of now. But they will not escape the judgment of history. Just as they are robbing the next generation of their future, the next generation of their children and their children's children will bear the memory of their misdeeds like the mark of Cain on their foreheads. The dreaded Holocaust had three major players - the persecuted Jews, the murderous Nazis, and those who saw nothing wrong with what the Nazis were doing and did nothing to stop the genocide. The Jews stood their ground, kept their faith and fought to the very end. The rape of our treasury, the pillage of our future and the corruption of our government institutions is our Filipino Holocaust. Our dignity as a people and the future of our country are being systematically and completely destroyed by the very people who are supposed to protect them. The choice is ours - we can be the defiant Jews, or the murderous and remorseless Nazis or apathetic fence-sitters. What role are we playing in this carnage?