Espuela's reprise would bring a different result

A very long time ago, there was a man, who, in the stirring dissenting words of the late Supreme Court Justice Pedro Tuason, "pretended to have decided to take his life because he was impotent to remedy or suppress (the) deplorable state of affairs, and he was ashamed of the way the government was being conducted. He likened some men in the Government, whom he did not specify, to Hitler and Mussolini, not that he idolized those notorious characters, but because, he felt, evil forces that undermined the ideas and ideals of the Constitution were at work in our republic". His name was Oscar Espuelas, a native of my late mother's home province of Bohol.

While Justice Tuason opined that Espuelas evinced an intense feeling of devotion to the welfare of the country and its institutions, the Supreme Court nevertheless found him guilty for seditious libel because he "had his picture taken, making it to appear as if he were hanging lifeless at the end of a piece of rope suspended from the limb of a tree, when in fact, he was merely standing on a barrel" and he sent copies of the pictures to news organizations together with an apparent suicide note.

Some of the words of Espuelas' which led to his conviction were: "(i)f someone asks you why I committed suicide, tell them I did it because I was not pleased with the administration of (there was a name of a president)… I committed suicide because I am ashamed of our government (again the president's name). I cannot hold my brows to the world with this dirty government.... I committed suicide because I have no power to put under Juez de Cuchillo all the (president's name once more) people now in power. So, I sacrificed my own self"

When that Boholano personality did his antic in 1947, he, most probably, did not imagine being prosecuted. Why would he suffer the ignominy of being an accused in a criminal proceeding when, perhaps, his was just a sheer expression of utter disappointment over the actuations of a president? Or for that matter, how could he ever expect a conviction!

I read his case, for the first time, in relation to my college work then. After perusing over the casebook, I did not really understand why Espuelas would do what he did. He could have used his picturesque imagination in many other positive ways. There was no sense portraying a morbid scene if he only wanted reforms. Committing suicide over governmental mismanagement would not remedy a failing administration and pretending to self-destruct was even worse.

In fact, I considered the Espuelas incident an insignificant historical aberration such that when I was done with the subject, I relegated his case to the dustbin of my own forgetfulness.

But, believe me, the specter projected by that Boholano assumed some meaning viewed in the light of recent events. I believe that if he walked among us the living today, he would not hesitate doing a reprise. Really, if I were made of his stern stuff, I would certainly I would mimic committing suicide because I, too, am ashamed of our president.

Why? Let us imagine that the henchmen of Her Excellency President Gloria Arroyo tried to move heaven and earth to tinker with our constitution, barely two years ago. How many signatures, affixed on papers that were to support a Peoples Initiative, were eventually exposed to be fraudulent? What about the Hello Garci tape, fertilizer scam, and the ZTE NBN broadband deal to name a few of the perceived dirty works?

Indeed, when the president's press secretary announced that Malacañang gave its "all-systems-go" signal to the new efforts to amend the charter, I could not contain my disbelief anymore. In giving that kind of a push for something that obviously would exacerbate the depths of suspicion, the president has lost my last ounce of trust for her. If there was a way I could bring back to life Espuelas, I would do it. This time, a similar picture of his make-believe suicide, labeled in the exact way he did in 1947 (except for the name of the president) would result in a groundswell of mass actions that could bring the president to the doors of her perdition.

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