It seems that Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is unlucky with buses. I mean, seeing those front-page photos in our national dailies of the Newman Goldliner bus destroyed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) brought me to remember the front pages in our national dailies during the Aug. 23rd botched hostage-taking incident that took the lives of 8 Hong Kong tourists, which by the way remains unresolved until now. Now we have a bombed bus and we can’t tell whether this was an effort to destabilize the Aquino government or it’s the act of terrorists?
This latest incident brings us back to the question that the late Vice-President and later Ambassador Emmanuel Pelaez asked then Quezon City Police Gen. Tomas Karingal in July 1982 after the assassination attempt on his life. He asked Gen. Karingal “What is happening to our country, General?” which is now the title of the biography of the Life and Times of Emmanuel Pelaez written by my good friend Nelson Navarro. In that book, Navarro said, “It was a question that would soon be heard across the nation and reverberate around the world, encapsulating in seven words what would come to haunt the Marcos regime in its final three years of power.”
Twenty-nine years after Pelaez asked that question, now you can say that it is the turn of Pres. P-Noy to answer this poignant, albeit historic question. Let me add my own query to the President, “Will we ever see peace in this country?” Coincidentally, The Philippine STAR’s Alexis Romero came up with that front-page report last Wednesday entitled “State of Peace RP Ranks 130th.” RP apparently slid 10 places lower last year because of internal conflict and crime. As Romero reported, “It is one of five countries with a steep decline in ranking, along with Cyprus, Georgia and Russia.”
Those figures were collated last year; hence P-Noy cannot entirely blame this downslide on the previous administration. Add the Aug. 23rd hostage taking incident that the whole world watched in awe (no one thought that our PNP SWAT teams would be so stupid) while we Filipinos watched in sheer embarrassment, then P-Noy really has his work cut out for him. With so much crimes happening this year, I’ll bet that we shall slid further down along with Ethiopia, Yemen and Burundi!
Like all the Presidents before Pj-Noy, they all gave our people various reasons or excuses why we still have no peace in this country. But if you ask me, the root cause of it all is our serious lack of Justice! The EDSA Revolt happened at the height of our slogan, “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All” because we knew that the trials against the Avsecom men that escorted Ninoy were a mockery. Next month, we shall be celebrating the 25th year of the EDSA Revolt and Justice is still woefully missing the Filipino people.
Remember that Black slogan “No Justice, No Peace?” That famous phrase was used during the famous Los Angeles riots in 1992 when Rodney King a black motorist figured in a car chase with LAPD and when he was caught, he was beaten by four cops? This incident was videotaped and the police were charged, but acquitted by a jury that resulted in the Los Angeles riots where the black rioters chanted that famous slogan “No Justice, No Peace.” When Justice is missing, we can never achieve a genuine peace.
But then it takes a lot of heat for Filipinos to become so indignant, they’d march to the streets and rally for the cause of peace. My warning to Pres. PNoy is, he should act swiftly and help really bring justice to our people. But then how can we achieve that when even the budget of the Judiciary was cut into smithereens by the Aquino government? I dare say that it is time of PNoy and Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona to sit down and fix what is wrong with our Justice system so we can finally have peace in this land.
I’m sure that Pres. PNoy is trying his best to do something about our serious lack of Justice when he came up with the Truth Commission. But then, he is stymied by the seething hatred of the people in his administration against former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which meant that only possible crimes done during her term would be subjected to that commission.
If only PNoy created a Truth Commission that would finally put a closure even to the still unresolved assassination of his father Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino and all those unsolved murders like the 146 journalists killed since 1986 or the famous Vizconde Massacre or all those still unresolved mass graves in Inopacan, Leyte which we suspect was done by the New People’s Army (NPA), then we just might be on the road to peace with justice. Today, no one is even investigating the killings of those 10 soldiers, including a 10-year old boy who were ambushed last Dec.14, 2010 just a day before the ceasefire took effect between the Communists and the Philippine government. This is why if there is no Justice… there can be no peace!
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