''Those who have faith in their government should be accorded the right to choose their heroes."
Part II
The problem with the arbitrary classification made by the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines is they rejected altogether the validity of the Arrest, Search and Seizure Order later known as the Presidential Detention Order despite its being upheld by the Supreme Court. The refusal was done to justify the claim of the alleged victims. There are inaccuracies in their claim of extrajudicial executions and disappearances, to wit:
First, many of those in the list included those killed in the course of their armed clash with the Armed Forces or possibly executed by their own comrades as alleged deep penetration agents. It was bloated to purposely make it appear that human rights abuses were widespread during the martial law period.
Second, their arbitrary listing of alleged victims was designed to instill into the minds of the next generation that massive human right violations took place.
Third, while the TFDP is gregarious in pointing out alleged atrocities, many wonder why it failed to account even a single execution carried by the communist rebels, foremost of which were the executions of the Plaza Miranda hand grenade thrower Danny Cordero, and former NPA military commission chief, Manuel “Noli” Collantes. Everybody knows that hundreds from their own ranks were summarily executed as alleged spies. They even boasted of carrying out the execution.
Fourth, their claim for compensation was uncannily supported by the US government which is ironic as it stands today as the greatest violator of human rights.
Yes, rebels who fought against the government can create their own heroes, but certainly they cannot demand compensation for the people they want to be elevated as martyrs. That is basic logic. Nevertheless, those who have faith in their government should be accorded the right to choose their heroes, and that include the soldiers who died in its defense.
On the contrary and unknown to the public, the Cory Aquino administration chalked up an unprecedented number of human rights violations. For the period from March 1, 1986 to December, 1991, it registered a record 15,999 warrantless arrest and detention, and 1,733 extrajudicial executions, including 189 that occurred in 1990. Mrs. Aquino did that under the aegis of freedom and democracy. The records in Congress indicate that the Commission on Human Rights, and TFDP, for the same period also listed 335 cases of disappearances, and 146 cases of massacre, which happened between March 1, 1986 and 1989, including the infamous Mendiola carnage that claimed the lives of 13 protesting farmers.
The TFDP documented human rights violations that during the first 1,000 days of the Aquino regime (1 March 1986 to 21 November 1988) there were 11,911 cases of illegal arrest, 705 summary executions, 88 frustrated summary executions, six deaths associated with cruel treatment or prison conditions, 125 massacres with 480 fatalities and 138 wounded, 136 counts of frustrated massacre, 1,676 tortured victims, 224 involuntary disappearances, 25 civilian deaths in counterinsurgency related activities, 37,133 families in 64 barangays forcibly evacuated, 623 families in 21 barangays hamletted, and 500 families in 37 barangays subjected to food and economic blockade.
Even if there are discrepancies in the number of human rights violations cited by the TFDP and that of the Philippine Alliance of Human Right Advocates, that cannot be made an issue because the variation did not indicate a reduction from Marcos to Aquino, but a concurrence of the steep increase in the number of violations. No less than an anti-Marcos opposition stalwart, Justice Abraham Sarmiento, cited the massive human rights violation during the Aquino administration. Somehow, it was glossed over because of the euphoria of freedom from the Marcos dictatorship.
If these figures were true, then the reign of Mrs. Aquino was worse than that of Marcos. For the TDFP to claim that 15,999 were arrested without a warrant by a government that vowed to guarantee civil liberties could strike fear to our people. Warrantless arrest is not supposed to take place in the absence of martial law or when the writ of habeas corpus is not suspended because the right to issue arrest warrant is exclusive to the courts. Marcos was honest enough to formalize the arrest and detention of suspects by imposing first martial law to justify the issuance of the controversial ASSOs and PDOs.
The same can be said of R.A. No. 10368 or “An Act Providing Reparations and Recognition for the Victims of Human Rights Violations” during the Marcos Regime. It was enacted on February 25, 2013 on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of their so-called “Edsa Revolution.” The bait of compensation swelled that it unmasked the true nature of these mendicant rebels. The funny thing about this ploy is that the same mercenaries Noynoy thought he could politically use in the 2016 election supported instead their now hated President Duterte. Opportunism and not ideology prevailed over them.
These two nitwit congressmen committed the greatest fraud against the Filipino people, for why should the government appropriate funds to defray those erstwhile rebels turned mendicants? The giving of reparations to the so-called “human rights victims” is an indictment that our soldiers fought an unjust, illegal and a morally wrong war. Naming Marcos guilty of violating human right was only used to cover their swindling of government funds.
Moreover, the authors did not mind that the law they enacted is a travesty to our legal system because they did not bother to declare the imposition of martial law in 1973 as illegal. Rather, they enacted a bill of attainder because it specifically sought to punish Marcos without the benefit of trial.
Now that the US has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council and refused to recognize the International Criminal Court even branding it as illegitimate, the hypocritical opposition led by the yellow horde, the clergy and the oligarchy are in a quandary on how to package their propaganda on human rights and charge of alleged extrajudicial killings committed by the Duterte administration.
US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, branded the UNHRC as a “hypocritical” body that “makes a mockery of human rights.” On the other hand, Trump’s National Security adviser, John Bolton, vowed to protect US citizens. That means the US will not surrender its jurisdiction to the ICC, and the hypocrites where they get their ideological guidance and strength on the issue to convert human rights violation into a weapon for political propaganda, much that the US has openly regurgitated it.
The case of the ideologically bankrupt militant Left is even more acute, much that they could not even decipher that the US has substituted international law in favor of national interest in the pursuit of its policy suggesting that it would only be guided by what suits best to its interest, and not to any other thing.
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