Death goes on September 26, 2006

I WANTED to write about the murder of Pablo Glean last week. Glean, Jejomar Binay's close-in security for the last couple of decades, was gunned down the other Saturday as he and some friends drank coffee at a Shell station in Fort Bonifacio preparatory to motor-biking to Tagaytay City. I didn't know if the killing was politically or criminally motivated. All my instincts told me it was a political killing, but I decided that prudence was the better part of outrage and waited last week for some sudden revelation that Glean was bumped off by partners or clients he had pissed off. Glean was also at one point in charge of giving business permits in Makati City, a job that naturally spawned enemies.

None came, though the authorities have lately been making noises to that effect, largely by way of speculation, or indeed suggestion. Presumably, Glean was gunned down by people he had ripped off during the aborted Feb. 25 "withdrawal of support" by military officers. Presumably, he had gotten money but failed to deliver on his promises. That tack carries with it the added suggestion that Binay himself was involved in the military officers' "withdrawal of support" or what Raul Gonzalez irascibly calls coup attempt.

Which adds insult to injury, or injury to injury, this government no longer limiting to insult what it can accomplish by injury. Already hurting from the death of a friend -- the copious tears Binay shed on TV looked completely spontaneous and genuine; he had lost a close friend, he said, one who on more than one occasion had saved his life -- Binay now has to reckon as well with the prospect of hurting in quite a literal sense. Or not hurting at all, if he should be sent to a place past hurting.

As things stand today, this looks every inch like a political killing. And the astonishing thing is why it has not met with more furious condemnation from the media, the NGOs, and the public. Because if this is a political killing, then it ups the ante on the killings that have been taking place in this country on an already mind-boggling scale. It adds whole new dimensions to them, which bodes ill not just for the health of democracy, or what little is left of it today, but for the health of living, breathing, human beings who happen to detest a rule by rulers the voters did not vote for.

At the very least, the killing of Glean brings the escalating mayhem right at the doorstep of Metro Manila. Or never mind doorstep, right at the heart, or pit, of Metro Manila. You can't get any more at the center of Metro Manila than the Fort. It is not a place you associate with mayhem, other than the aesthetic kind, or the kind the youth like to inflict on themselves. So far the killings of both journalists and political activists, notably of the party-list group Bayan Muna, have been taking place outside of Metro Manila. Yes, even the killings of activists. Now and then, you have an activist killed, or abducted, in the fringes of Metro Manila, but never at the heart of it. And never in this brazen, high-profile way.

The reason for this is not that fascist governments have a superstitious respect for the capital. The reason for this is that not even a fascist government wants to draw international attention to something like this. A killing of a journalist or party-list representative in Metro Manila (Gen. Hermogenes Esperon was openly suggesting to the Melo Commission there was no great distinction between communists and party-list representatives; he backtracked only when he was grilled on that point) would open the floodgates to international scorn and crippling sanctions from the US. As it is, the international journalist and human rights communities have already issued worldwide alerts against the killings in the Philippines. And as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo found out in her latest sortie abroad, where she was haunted by the ghosts of the dead wherever she went, you can become an international pariah for it.

But there's always a first time, and I've always thought that if any first was going to happen in this respect, which is bringing the killings to Metro Manila, it was going to happen under Arroyo's watch. Or lack of it. This one knows no limits, this one knows no bounds.

At the very most, the killing of Glean brings the escalating mayhem right at the doorstep of the "opposition," by which I mean not just the political figures opposed to the administration but everyone critical of Arroyo. I was about to say it graduates the killings on to political figures but I don't know that political figures, even those based in Metro Manila, are more important than journalists, even those based in the provinces. I've always thought the opposite was true.

Glean, of course, is not himself an opposition figure, but he is an alter ego of an opposition figure who is Binay. Binay's camp is at least convinced, and for very good reason, that the murder of Glean is meant to put the fear of God or government, whichever comes in more smiting mode, in the mayor of Makati. As an official of that camp told me recently, the message is: "If we can do that to your security officer, we can do that to you." Particularly with the current tack of implicating Binay in the "withdrawal of support" or coup, pick your poison, that is no idle threat.

And if that can happen to Binay, that can happen to anyone.

I've been saying it again and again: We do not rise to stop the killings even now, they will get worse. We do not rage against the dying of the light because it is somebody else's light and not our own, we will wake up one day to hear the snuffers of light loudly knocking at our door. Enough with that stupidity about forgetting iniquity and "kawalanghiyaan" [wrongdoing], let's move on, life goes on. Life does not go on with iniquity and kawalanghiyaan.

Death does.

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