The issue is not medical

The potshots exchanged between “Malacañang’s doctors” and Arroyo’s doctor are becoming more and more ridiculous. The Philippine Medical Association is being invoked to deny the medical opinion of her doctor. And that will decide whether Mrs. Arroyo goes abroad for a needed emergency treatment? This is unacceptable.

Maybe it will help us understand the highhandedness of the Aquino government better if we were to put ourselves in her shoes. The government is getting away with cruel behavior because there are those who think that it is all right for the President to decide what happens to her because she was his political enemy.

You are either a FPGMA supporter or follower if you were to defend her. It is this thinking that allows this government to get away with ‘murder’. We have accepted this as all politics or as the former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada used to say “weather weather lang iyan.”

Well, it isn’t. What happens to Mrs. Arroyo puts us all in peril because the issue is about principles and ethics in a democratic society.

The conflict is between two rights here. One is the individual’s right to freedom and justice. The other is the right of the state to demand obedience to its laws to fulfill its duty of governing society.

Instead of defending its role of governing society (or is it indefensible?) the Aquino government has overstepped its function. The only reason why a citizen with a pending case is banned from travel is the fear that she will not return.

It is stupid to think that Mrs. Arroyo if she is allowed to travel can escape or run away beyond the reach of law when she is up for trial.

In defending its right, the government should simply require the necessary guarantees for her return and stop debating about her health.

(I remember during the trial of Imelda in New York, Adnan Khasshogi who was her co-accused was set free with a band attached to his leg so the New York Court could always trace where he was at any given time.

Onassis had all the means to run away and he was not even sick. Why could a solution not be found to satisfy both the law and an accused? Is the law being complicit with this persecution?)

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Instead, the government has taken over an individual’s (the former president’s) right to life and wellbeing. That right is being crushed by the state’s right of “obedience to its laws.” There lies the danger. If an individual’s life and wellbeing is sacrificed to the capricious power of state then all of us are in peril. We are into dictatorship no matter if it is cloaked in democratic garments. For this reason this column has resisted attempts to make her health the central point of discussion for her freedom.

The present confusion arises from the Aquino government invoking the Philippine Medical Association and the Makati Medical Center to make statements to refute the medical opinion of Arroyo’s doctor, Dr. Roberto Anastacio.

Shame on these institutions. That is not the issue.

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The Aquino government must realize its unlawful and untenable position of pinning down the issue to her health. It has now asked the former President to file a pre-trial brief on the electoral sabotage case lodged against her. In other words, the government does not have a case but it wants the former president to answer charges.

Arroyo meanwhile has invoked her constitutional right as a citizen of a democratic nation. Since she is being accused of wrongdoing, the burden of proof is on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that had filed the case against her.

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I do not know enough of DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo’s work to praise him. But I do know that he was not liked enough by the Aquino government or it would have pushed for his confirmation to the position. That is why all the official adulation smacks of hypocrisy. If all that has been said about him were true, then why has he remained unconfirmed in a matuwid na daan government. And you can’t blame it on a defanged Commission on Appointments either. It is a reflection on this government that if it deemed he would not do well in the skullduggery that marks our elections.

The timing of his untimely death was impeccable. He has been eased out in what would have been otherwise a difficult situation of having a good man in charge of local government where it is said that votes are delivered. For the time being all honors can be given to Robredo but keep your eye on the ball when the game is resumed.

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It is sad that President Aquino could not be in ceremonies to remember his father’s martyrdom. After all, both his mother and he owe their presidencies to that event on August 21, 1983. For whatever reason that he missed this in order to bring Robredo’s body to Manila, I would think that he could have spared some time for the anniversary of his father’s martyrdom. It would have been a dramatic gesture not to mention the depth of a son’s feeling for his late father. But then his absence is consistent with his declaration (as also during his mother’s government) not to pursue a serious investigation and trial of Ninoy’s assassination. It remains an unsolved murder.

I remember the disappointment about Cory’s failure to follow up public demand that she use her presidency to find out once and for all who were behind her husband’s assassination at high noon when he arrived at Manila’s airport. Blaming it on Marcos or Imelda was an unproved presumption.

It is not easy to forget the pathos of Ninoy’s murder. He was killed before he stepped down to touch Philippine soil, a wish he had expressed time and again in his exile in the US.

Had the President been present in the ceremonies to remember his father’s martyrdom it would have been a powerful symbol. It would have given more meaning to all the talk about impunity in violent Philippine politics. All efforts to punish crime are futile if this one death remains a mystery to this day despite the fact that his widow and now his son had the awesome powers of government to find out the masterminds.