(Part 2)
These past months we have seen high profile convicted criminals given various degrees of pardons and freedom. The victims and/or their loved ones end up with the short end of the stick. Those convicted may have served their time but, in the end, still come out of it alive with a chance at reunion with family.
Kris Aquino said it right when she pointed out that the release, with convicts who continue to admit guilt of the crime, trivializes her father’s death and what it stood for. Kris, like her Mother Cory, says she has forgiven the convicts for the crime— but could not forgive their refusal to admit to what they did.
I am, myself, a firm believer in reform, spiritual renewal, and forgiveness. But has reform happened with these soldiers as they hold on to what many are convinced is a long-standing lie? How can one forgive when there is no repentance?
This seems to be part of the dark legacy that Arroyo will leave behind – that justice favors those who have sinned. We only need to look at ZTE/NBN, the Fertilizer scam, Celso de los Angeles and his Legacy. Those at fault are favored. Those who do right are persecuted.
When someone like Celso de los Angeles and Jimmy Paule can have the audacity to say that they have done nothing wrong, even challenge accusers to bring them to court, then there is something terribly wrong with the system, or that the system is really under the control of an administration fraught with injustice, corruption and inequality.
Scarier is the thought that, even at its most blatant and corrupted form, this government will continue to benefit from the indifference, callousness or passivity of the poor Filipino victimized by his own dying hope that reform is still possible.