No same - Miriam Coronel Ferrer
WAYS OF SPECIES | MIRIAM CORONEL FERRER | 07/10/2009 1:55 AM
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While news in other parts of the globe strike us as dauntingly familiar (see last column – Same-same), some other events make us envious knowing that we are decades away from witnessing a reprise on our own soil. To put it in broken but concise English, “Here in the Philippines, sometimes, the news is no same.”
Foremost difference to my mind is the progress in the trial of the Khmer Rouge’s former jail chief “Duch” in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This month, the artist Vann Nath, a survivor of the notorious prison in Phnom Penh, testified before the courts. Tearfully, he said he never imagined to live to see this day when justice will be served. But even more gripping is the fact that the accused has pleaded guilty to having been one of the senior murderers of the regime. His apology is a remorse rarely seen in killers (and thieves) from officialdom.
That a governor can fall because of a love affair and an unofficial side-trip while on official travel in a foreign country is amazing to Filipinos who have accepted paramours as an attribute of political power and tolerated the personal use of taxpayers’ money. In the US, such indiscretions are costing South Carolina governor Mark Sanford his face, his chance as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 2012, and maybe even his wife, if not his lover. Sanford has been widely censured for having met with his paramour while on state-funded trip to Argentina in 2008. He has since refunded taxpayers $3,300 for the costs incurred in the tryst.
How many times has this Philippine president gone on side trips during official travel for unsatisfactorily explained reasons? The most recent were the stops at Colombia and Hong Kong while on a Japan-Brazil official itinerary. Many are suspicious that some money laundering or the like is taking place, but more are willing to let it pass as one other prerogative of power.
And just how many foreign trips is the president entitled? In June, the president went to six countries -- Brunei, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Colombia, and Hong Kong(China), in that order. She did this despite the critical security situation in Sulu (where ICRC’s Eugenio Vagni has been held captive for months), Basilan, and Central Mindanao. She left unmindful of the prolonged humanitarian crisis in Maguindanao, where more than 100,000 evacuees remain due to ongoing military operations against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Now the UN-World Food Program has pulled out their personnel due to further deterioration of the situation and the looming possibility of more bombs exploding with no one held accountable.
In contrast, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao skipped the G8 meeting in Italy and rushed home to deal with the outbreak of communal conflict between the Han Chinese and indigenous Uighurs in Urumqi. We may disdain the heavy-handedness that the Chinese communist leader can be expected to wield in order to quell the social unrest. But we admire his priorities. No extended excursion or side trip for him.
On another matter, we read the news that George Madoff was sentenced, after only six months of trial, to 150 years in jail for swindling his investors. The judge justified the tough penance with the verdict that he committed “extraordinary evil”. His estate has been seized for distribution among his victims.
On this side of the globe, seized ill-gotten assets of the Marcoses may even be returned to the family, what with government losing more and more of the suits, and the Presidential Commission on Good Government reduced to a milking cow of those tasked to recover the wealth.
We also read in dismay that scammer Celso Angeles of the Legacy Group of Companies has reported back to work as mayor in Albay. Why is this man not yet in jail? What happened to all the televised investigations in the Senate and Lower House? How come the people are willing to take him back as mayor after he had willfully defrauded thousands of depositors and engaged in all sorts of business shenanigans that have all been fully exposed to the public?
Many abuses and indiscretions like these go unchecked because we let our government officials do nothing, even commit these very crimes, again and again. We’ll even vote for them next election.
It’s a ramshackle of a country - a polity with tattered norms -- that we are turning over to our children.
E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com
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