Life flowers November 20, 2006
I NEVER GOT TO WRITE ABOUT IT LAST week, but I can’t let it pass without comment. Or indeed without praise. That was the call made by the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce and several multinationals on Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stop the killings. The Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce represented the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. The call was made as well by several locally based US apparel companies.
“Such violence has no place in a modern democratic state. For the sake of justice, and to deter continued killings, these murders should be investigated thoroughly and those found responsible punished under the law.” These killings don’t stop, the groups warned, foreign investments will. What is at stake is P8.5 billion in direct foreign investments over the next four years that could provide jobs for close to 3 million Filipinos. The group’s statement made it clear that the days when foreign investments and a climate of murder were golfing buddies, which was when the United States supported thugs in the Third World, are over.
What can I say? I wouldn’t mind wearing Gap, Polo, or Ralph Lauren shirts in days to come. I don’t know that they’ve been charged with turning a blind eye to child labor in sweatshops in Asia, like Nike, but if only for their speaking out against the horrendous atrocity that is the open, brazen and near-genocidal decimation of journalists and political activists in this country, I’m all for giving them their due.
I’m especially elated that this comes in the heels of another momentous event, which is the Democratic victory in the United States. Which bodes well for the advancement—or never mind advancement, just mere observance—of human rights across the world. Or still indeed, never mind human rights, which sounds like an amenity of civilization like drinking tea; just mind the right to exist, to breathe, to occupy space which is being extirpated in this part of the world. My friends in Chicago were right, you can shout your head off at the obscenity and demand that the US government stop giving aid to a country that does these things, but so long as Bush and company have that country under their thumb, you will be trying to awaken someone who’s pretending to be asleep.
A Democratic victory has changed all that. Certainly, Nancy Pelosi, who’s likely to be the first woman Speaker of the House, and who used to rail against Marcos’ terror and mayhem, can’t take too kindly to what the current woman fake president in America’s former colony is doing to her countrymen. That fake president may be free to ignore the cries of the human rights community, the religious community and the swelling barangay of the kin of the dead, but she cannot afford to ignore the demands of the US Congress for the killings to stop. Those demands will have the tone and demeanor of Patrick Stewart telling his crew in “Star Trek: The Second Generation”: “Make it so.”
The same thing is true of foreign investors telling the fake president to stop the genuine killings. She may fake her response, but there is a price to pay for it in terms of money pouring into this country, a great deal of it into Pidal’s pockets. But it’s not a little ironic that the foreign community should be telling us what should be patent to us by now. Only a couple of weeks ago, the Asian Development Bank also pointed out something that’s staring us right in the face, which is the ravage upon the economy being wreaked by the exodus of skilled Filipino labor abroad. Foreign investments, it warned, won’t go to a country that has depleted itself of its human talent. Now comes the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce warning us foreign investments won’t go to a country that is depleting itself of its people. You would think that we would realize that on our own and—as far as the killings in particular go—voice the most violent protests against it.
Ignacio Bunye says his boss is herself earnest about stopping the killings and has ordered her people “to leave no stone unturned” in investigating the murders. That’s lamer than the paraplegics that inhabit Avenida’s orthopedic center. It merely adds another layer to this government’s capacity to lie through its teeth. A capacity to issue flat denials in the face of obdurate facts, not unlike a spouse resolutely denying infidelity while caught in the act—“this is not what you think ….” It also raises questions about Bunye’s hearing. Did GMA really say “Leave no stone unturned,” or “Leave no journalist or activist unharmed”?
He also says that his boss is reiterating her plea, which she issued in her Sona, for the victims’ kin to come out and give testimony so the murders could be solved. And what, add themselves to the list to be killed, given in particular Jovito Palparan’s logic that to be found in the company of suspected NPA members is to court mayhem? In any case, GMA should be the last person to invite witnesses to come out and tell what they know of the murders. One general, Francisco Gudani, did come out to tell what he knew of the murder of the votes in Lanao during the last elections, and she had him arrested and court-martialed. Before that, Acsa Ramirez also came out to damn evildoers and look what happened to her.
But I’m glad that the people and institutions, those that wield much clout and are in a position to influence this country’s direction, are using their clout to direct it to the right path. Or never mind the right path, just the path out of barbarism, savagery and death. I was beginning to think our call to stop the killings was doomed to fall on deaf ears.
I should have known that through the rubble, life would push through. Through the debris, life would flower.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=33607
“Such violence has no place in a modern democratic state. For the sake of justice, and to deter continued killings, these murders should be investigated thoroughly and those found responsible punished under the law.” These killings don’t stop, the groups warned, foreign investments will. What is at stake is P8.5 billion in direct foreign investments over the next four years that could provide jobs for close to 3 million Filipinos. The group’s statement made it clear that the days when foreign investments and a climate of murder were golfing buddies, which was when the United States supported thugs in the Third World, are over.
What can I say? I wouldn’t mind wearing Gap, Polo, or Ralph Lauren shirts in days to come. I don’t know that they’ve been charged with turning a blind eye to child labor in sweatshops in Asia, like Nike, but if only for their speaking out against the horrendous atrocity that is the open, brazen and near-genocidal decimation of journalists and political activists in this country, I’m all for giving them their due.
I’m especially elated that this comes in the heels of another momentous event, which is the Democratic victory in the United States. Which bodes well for the advancement—or never mind advancement, just mere observance—of human rights across the world. Or still indeed, never mind human rights, which sounds like an amenity of civilization like drinking tea; just mind the right to exist, to breathe, to occupy space which is being extirpated in this part of the world. My friends in Chicago were right, you can shout your head off at the obscenity and demand that the US government stop giving aid to a country that does these things, but so long as Bush and company have that country under their thumb, you will be trying to awaken someone who’s pretending to be asleep.
A Democratic victory has changed all that. Certainly, Nancy Pelosi, who’s likely to be the first woman Speaker of the House, and who used to rail against Marcos’ terror and mayhem, can’t take too kindly to what the current woman fake president in America’s former colony is doing to her countrymen. That fake president may be free to ignore the cries of the human rights community, the religious community and the swelling barangay of the kin of the dead, but she cannot afford to ignore the demands of the US Congress for the killings to stop. Those demands will have the tone and demeanor of Patrick Stewart telling his crew in “Star Trek: The Second Generation”: “Make it so.”
The same thing is true of foreign investors telling the fake president to stop the genuine killings. She may fake her response, but there is a price to pay for it in terms of money pouring into this country, a great deal of it into Pidal’s pockets. But it’s not a little ironic that the foreign community should be telling us what should be patent to us by now. Only a couple of weeks ago, the Asian Development Bank also pointed out something that’s staring us right in the face, which is the ravage upon the economy being wreaked by the exodus of skilled Filipino labor abroad. Foreign investments, it warned, won’t go to a country that has depleted itself of its human talent. Now comes the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce warning us foreign investments won’t go to a country that is depleting itself of its people. You would think that we would realize that on our own and—as far as the killings in particular go—voice the most violent protests against it.
Ignacio Bunye says his boss is herself earnest about stopping the killings and has ordered her people “to leave no stone unturned” in investigating the murders. That’s lamer than the paraplegics that inhabit Avenida’s orthopedic center. It merely adds another layer to this government’s capacity to lie through its teeth. A capacity to issue flat denials in the face of obdurate facts, not unlike a spouse resolutely denying infidelity while caught in the act—“this is not what you think ….” It also raises questions about Bunye’s hearing. Did GMA really say “Leave no stone unturned,” or “Leave no journalist or activist unharmed”?
He also says that his boss is reiterating her plea, which she issued in her Sona, for the victims’ kin to come out and give testimony so the murders could be solved. And what, add themselves to the list to be killed, given in particular Jovito Palparan’s logic that to be found in the company of suspected NPA members is to court mayhem? In any case, GMA should be the last person to invite witnesses to come out and tell what they know of the murders. One general, Francisco Gudani, did come out to tell what he knew of the murder of the votes in Lanao during the last elections, and she had him arrested and court-martialed. Before that, Acsa Ramirez also came out to damn evildoers and look what happened to her.
But I’m glad that the people and institutions, those that wield much clout and are in a position to influence this country’s direction, are using their clout to direct it to the right path. Or never mind the right path, just the path out of barbarism, savagery and death. I was beginning to think our call to stop the killings was doomed to fall on deaf ears.
I should have known that through the rubble, life would push through. Through the debris, life would flower.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=33607
posted by dqfan06 @ 9:49 AM
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