Deconstructing EDSA I

 

 

By his own admission, President Noynoy Aquino sought refuge in Cebu when his father, the late Senator Benigno Aquino II, was assassinated in 1983. It was also in Cebu where his mother, former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino, took shelter from the political turmoil in Manila during the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that eventually deposed the dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power.

 

Now on the 28th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution, President Aquino is making a revisionist historical claim that it was in Cebu where his mother Cory planted the seed of civil disobedience against the Marcos regime. Thus, why the President was in Cebu to celebrate the anniversary of the EDSA revolt as he emphasized the role played by Cebu in the initial stage of the revolution. As President Aquino said, “If the last part of the protest happened in EDSA, the first part started in Cebu.”

President Noynoy Aquino contemplates the legacy of his parents,
democracy icons former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and former
President  Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino on the 28-year anniversary
of  the EDSA I People Power Revolution.

Everyone who knows full well the roots of the people’s protest in EDSA is aware that President Aquino was wrong in claiming that his mother planned the protest while she was in Cebu. Cory Aquino was in Cebu at that time for her own safety just as her own son took refuge there when he was a young boy during his father’s assassination.

 

The people’s protest in EDSA was the tipping point in the civil society’s struggle against the oppressive Marcos regime. Long before EDSA, the Filipino people had already been waging their battle to depose Marcos from Malacañang. Thousands had been killed and imprisoned by the Marcos dictatorship in its effort to remain in power, but EDSA became the critical moment in the people’s movement against the repressive regime. It was in EDSA where the people’s protest reached a critical mass.

 

But whether Cebu actually played an important part in the EDSA revolution only downplays its significance. What is more important is for us to grasp the true meaning of the EDSA uprising, and whether it has accomplished its purpose.

 

EDSA was successful in driving Marcos into exile, but the landscape of political power was never altered. The so-called restoration of democracy in the Philippines in 1986 was simply a transfer of political power into the hands of the oligarchic elite. There was a change in the characters on the political stage, but the play’s storyline remained constant.

 

Twenty-eight years have passed since the EDSA revolution. Income inequalities continue to intensify despite growth in GDP because the economic gains meant bigger profits to corporations and mainly benefited a few wealthy families. The so-called economic growth under the Aquino administration did not translate to higher and gainful employment, thus worsening poverty among more than 25 percent of the population. In short, the quality of life for many Filipinos either worsened or remained unchanged.

 

On the political side, political power remains the monopoly of a handful of family dynasties. The Marcoses were driven into exile by the EDSA uprising but it did not prevent them and their followers from coming back to regain their political influence. Now, the Marcos family is in the political picture again, and if unchecked, it may spring its biggest political comeback by capturing the presidency in the very near future, relegating the EDSA revolution to a sad and insignificant footnote in the country’s history.

 

Public corruption has become a way of life for politicians, making politics the most lucrative of all careers. With its “daang matuwid” mantra, the incumbent administration promises to clean the government of corruption. Yet, looting of the public coffers remains rampant from congressional pork barrel to the President’s own presidential pork barrel, both disguised as earmarks for development assistance.

 

Notwithstanding the return of democracy and restoration of political and civil liberties after the EDSA uprising, repression of political dissent continues to a point where it is allowed as a permissible culture of impunity. While the Philippine press has been bandied around as one of the freest in the world, journalists continue to be easy prey for government repression. The Philippines had the third most number of journalists killed last year and has continued to be among the countries where press freedom is imperiled.

 

In an interview with reporters, President Aquino said that online libel is justified since it constitutes equal protection for those who are aggrieved by information through the Internet. It is easy to understand why President Noynoy Aquino would rather protect those he believes could be criminally libeled on the Internet than preserving the lives of journalists and their right to freely express themselves. Journalists scare Aquino because he does not want to be criticized. To President Aquino, protecting him and others from criticism either on the Internet or on traditional media trumps the right to freedom of expression. Thus, it is acceptable for Noynoy Aquino to punish critics for criminal libel rather than to protect and preserve the rights of journalists and other critics to their life and freedom of the press.

 

This is not to say that no remedy should be made available whenever one defames another. Libel has already been decriminalized in many jurisdictions because the civil court has proven to be capable of providing appropriate remedies for damages rather than imprisonment. Why is it difficult for the Philippines to follow the trend towards decriminalization of libel, but for the very thin skin of President Aquino, Senator Tito Sotto and others who are easily offended by fair criticism?

 

President Aquino’s disquieting aversion to criticism also demonstrates his lack of human compassion to empathize with the oppressed and the poor. Take for instance the victims of super Typhoon Yolanda when they recently travelled to Manila in order to air their grievances for the government’s slow response to their plight.

Survivors of Typhoon Yolanda joined the People Power celebration at the EDSA
Shrine to press their call for press relief for their fellow victims in the Eastern
Visayas region, and tied violet ribbons in many places at Ground Zero to protest
their plight. Photo by Manny Palmero.

Instead of meeting with the protesters, President Aquino snubbed them for coming to Manila. The President said: “To those who are saying that we have been slow in responding... it seems to me that if they are capable of attending to their trip to Manila, perhaps they can also attend to their livelihood.”

 

Aquino’s Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman agreed with the President by saying “instead of coming here, they could have used the money to help themselves.”

 

Even much worse was the reaction of Rehabilitation Czar Panfilo Lacson who denied that the government had been slow in responding to the needs of the calamity survivors and dismissed the protesting typhoon survivors as pawns of communist agitators and leftist groups who wanted to destabilize the government. Here we go again with red-baiting which was a ubiquitous aspect of repression during the Marcos dictatorship.

 

Certainly, this is not the kind of heartless government we wanted after the EDSA revolution. We threw out a repressive regime but coddled another cruel government that suffers from a lack of consideration and empathy to people’s problems. And if we don’t agree with their demands, we call them communists, as if the end of the Cold War in the 1990s did not already erase that stigma of communism.

 

People in high echelons of government like President Aquino and his cabinet should be more sensitive to the needs of the people. If people criticize the government for being slow in responding to their problems, like the victims of Typhoon Yolanda, the best thing for the President or his staff to do is to sit down and listen to them, not to scold them for coming to Manila. After all, these people are also part of the constituency the President calls his boss. Unless, calling the people his boss is just another insincere publicity stunt.

 

The protesters who gathered in EDSA in February 1986 came in droves, armed only with the courage of their words and songs to show the genuineness of their intent and spirit to revolt against repression. They all knew full well that in the event of gunfire, their cause would be lost in a matter of minutes. But the dictator’s minions dithered and avoided the risk of action, in the end betraying their own loyalty to the cruel regime. In a few hours, the Marcos dictatorship crumbled without firing a shot and the entire country and the world begun to embrace the idea that a peaceful revolution was possible.

 

That was the essence of EDSA I, which was lost in the years of succession from one president to another. The only trouble is that every president after Ferdinand Marcos tried to outdo him, to become better or even greater. They all failed, even the current one.

 

Instead of transforming the narrative of the peaceful revolution of EDSA into a story of the making of a new country, a new constitution, a new world—every leader after Marcos emulated the dictator’s predilection for punitive action against the voices of dissent, for rewarding his capitalist cronies and members of the oligarchic elite, for reinforcing political dynasties, and for committing petty and grand corruption in all levels of government. The ordinary masses who persevered in the struggle for a better life actually never figured in the country’s democratic renewal after EDSA. They were victims of the old society under Marcos and they have continued to be the sacrificial victims of one regime after another of excess, extravagance, and small-mindedness.

 

Is it any wonder that those aching for the return of another Marcos in Malacañang are never in doubt that this reality is not any further away? This is a brutal simplification of history after EDSA I, but the fallibility of our memory makes the upcoming narrative almost frightening.

Ampatuan’s travesty

 

 

The Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao on November 23, 2009 will probably go down in history as the bloodiest of all political killings in the Philippines. Four years and counting since the hearing started on January 6, 2010, the pursuit of justice for the victims of the massacre remains as elusive as the prospect of a trial date. The completion of the trial has even become the running joke around legal circles that it might happen after 200 years.

Maguindanao massacre, November 23, 2009. Photo courtesy of AFP/Mark Navales.

The greatest travesty of the Ampatuan massacre is not in how slow the wheels of justice grind in the Philippines, but right on the get go when the prosecutors decided to indict all the accused as direct participants in the commission of the crime of murder. As the Philippine Department of Justice (DOJ) said during the laying of charges against the accused: “There is direct evidence that [the accused] agreed to commit the crime. Their acts and the attendant circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime unveil a common aim that would make all of them co-principals in the crime committed.”

 

The DOJ panel that investigated the crime concluded that the massacre was the result of a conspiracy, that included Andal Ampatuan Sr., head of a Muslim clan and former governor of Maguindanao, his two sons, Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of the Autonomous Muslim Region of Mindanao, and Andal Ampatuan Jr., mayor of the town that bears the family’s name, the clan’s private army and political supporters, and members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). All together, the number of accused totalled to 197, whom according to the DOJ, participated in the planning and massacre. The total number of victims is 57, which includes 32 journalists, the largest number of media workers killed in a single incident.

 

What seems wrong in this picture?

 

The notion of a conspiracy beguiles the mind. All the 197 accused, including the drivers, the Ampatuans’ lowly servants, and the backhoe operator who dug the ground where the victims were buried, knew what the plan was, that they had a unity of purpose, and they executed the plan to achieve their objective. It’s not therefore just the principals, the Ampatuan family, apparently the mastermind of this heinous crime who are criminally culpable, but each one of the 197 accused.

 

In a crime where there are principals, accomplices and accessories, the degree of punishment varies in accordance with the degree of their contribution in the accomplishment of the crime. However, when there is conspiracy, there will no longer be a distinction as to whether a person acted as a principal, accomplice or accessory, because when there is conspiracy, the criminal liability of all will be the same, because the act of one is the act of all.

 

The umbrella approach of the prosecutors to indict all accused as participants in a conspiracy to commit the massacre is a sure-fire formula that would either delay or frustrate the quest for justice. Delay will be achieved by lawyers for the defence as they can bring a deluge of motions after motions, manifestations, oppositions, including bail petitions, which to date have numbered to 750 in all. Filing an endless stream of such motions seems to be at the heart of the Ampatuans’ legal defense. This is more than enough to slow down and impede the trial. Legal stalling tactics by the lawyers of the accused, a fractured prosecution, and a slow-moving court have conspired against a speedy trial.

 

There are also numerous witnesses who have to be interviewed and examined, and just by the number alone would take the case to completion after 200 years, as one former Philippine senator conjectured. Some witnesses will be intimidated, threatened and frightened from testifying, and the fact is, some witnesses have already been killed or have died.

 

In retrospect, the Nuremberg Trial which presided over the worst case of genocide in the 20th century prosecuted only 14 of the highest-ranking Nazis. Prosecuting all the 197 accused in the Ampatuan massacre is by all means a blueprint for impunity. This will ensure that the prosecution will never end.

 

While the Ampatuan prosecutors are at it, i.e., establishing the conspiracy of 197 accused, why didn’t they include former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her Secretary of Defence Norberto Gonzales who were rumored as part of the over-all conspiracy? After all, the Ampatuan massacre benefited Mrs. Arroyo as it made it easier for her to rig the election results in the region and it also gave her the legal excuse to declare martial law in Maguindanao during that time. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago even remarked about an alleged sinister plan [unproven] to extend martial law beyond the province of Maguindanao to ensure that President Arroyo stay in power.

 

The current administration under President Noynoy Aquino has maintained that they cannot intervene directly to expedite the Ampatuan trial on the ground of constitutional separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Although President Aquino has repeatedly said that the Ampatuan case would be a litmus test of the Philippine judiciary's ability to dispense justice, the government has not shown a greater commitment of its resources and attention to ensure the success of the prosecution of those responsible for the massacre.

 

The lack of progress in the Ampatuan prosecution only confirms the consistent and disturbing pattern for the justice system’s treatment of media killings in the Philippines: a journalist is killed, local law enforcement officials are either lax or complicit, witnesses and complainants are intimidated, bribed or killed, and lawyers for the accused employ delaying tactics that would break the will and resources of the victims’ families. The end result is very disquieting – the case goes unresolved and the culture of impunity is thus reinforced. This shows why the Philippines has ranked third worst on the 2012 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Impunity Index, which calculates unsolved media killings as a percentage of each country's population. Despite the Philippines' tradition of press freedom, the country's dysfunctional and corrupt criminal justice system has failed to bring justice in 55 journalist murders in the past decade.

Infographic on the Ampatuan massacre trial overview, courtesy of cmfrphilippines.
Click link to view "Journalists to commemorate 4th anniversary of Ampatuan Massacre,"
 http://www.philstar.com/news-videos/2013/11/19/1258501/watch-journalists-commemorate-4th-anniversary-ampatuan-massacre 

The Aquino government can do something to ensure that those who perpetrated the Ampatuan massacre are brought to trial in a fashion that dispenses swift justice for the victims and their grieving families. To keep invoking the separation of powers between the main branches of government is a lame excuse, and only reinforces the prevailing culture of impunity. President Aquino’s continuing failure to state how he intends to finish the prosecution of the Ampatuan massacre means he lacks the political will to punish those who violate freedom of the press and the right to life.

 

For him to correct this charade of justice, President Aquino can, for starters, ask the Supreme Court to designate the Quezon City Regional Trial Court hearing the case a “special court” with no other duties beyond the Maguindanao massacre hearings. The special court then can start the prosecution and trial of the principals in the case (i.e., members of the Ampatuan clan), and do away with the notion of a conspiracy, even if it would mean dismissing the charges against those who were co-accused but apparently played a minor role in the massacre. All the 62 policemen and military personnel involved in the massacre should be dismissed from service immediately, the charges against them can be dropped or they can be indicted for charges appropriate for their role in the massacre.

 

One last but immediate measure President Aquino can do for the families of the victims of the massacre is to provide them with compensation for the death of the victims and failure of the government in its obligation to protect and promote the right of the victims to live. This is nothing new. Government compensation for crime victims dates back to the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, which is considered the oldest known written body of criminal law.

 

Victims of crimes ought to be compensated by the government charged with the responsibility to protect them when it failed to do so. Many countries today have some form of compensation scheme that pays reparation to victims of crimes for the failure of government to protect them. This compensation becomes the means of repairing the harm left in the wake of crime.

 

In at least two cases before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Philippines was found guilty of breaching its obligation to protect and promote the right to life for its failure to reasonably investigate and prosecute the killings of Navy Ensign Philip Pestano and Eden Marcellana. The UN Committee declared that the Philippine government owes to pay compensation to these two victims of extrajudicial killings.

 

Upon hearing of a Hong Kong woman, who was shot in the face during the deadly 2010 hostage crisis in the Philippines, that she needed to have surgery on her left jaw, President Aquino has agreed to give an undisclosed amount to help her defray the cost of the operation. If Noynoy’s heart bleeds for a Hong Kong citizen, what then should prevent him from also feeling the pain and suffering of the families of the victims of the Ampatuan massacre, his very own compatriots?

 

There is ample time left in President Aquino’s term to reverse the travesty and shame that the Ampatuan trial has brought upon the justice system. But only if his heart also bleeds for his fellow Filipinos, if he can feel the anguish of the families of the victims, and if he will listen to their cry for justice.

Political prosecution

 

 

In the first year of his presidency, President Noynoy Aquino was successful in having impeached former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, whom he considered one of the main obstacles in his objective of cleaning the government of corruption, a promise he made during the election campaign. The other obstacle is former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is currently in hospital detention and waiting for her day in court on charges of plunder and election sabotage.

 

Now, the Aquino administration is determined to flush out some high-profile members of Congress for allegedly taking part in a pork barrel scam that involved billions of pesos that were supposed to be earmarked for projects under the Priority Development Fund (PDAF). Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. are all prominent members of the opposition, with the latter being touted as a presidential hopeful in the 2016 elections.

Members of President Noynoy Aquino's poltical opposition who are target of
of the current PDAF scam investigation. Photo courtesy of rappler.

The President’s Secretary of Justice, Leila de Lima, has promised to add more senators to the list of the accused in the scam. Likely to be accused are Senators Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Gregorio Honasan and about 23 representatives in Congress, all members of the opposition.

 

There is a very clear pattern in President Aquino’s crusade against corruption in high levels of government. From the ousted former SC Chief Justice Corona to ex-president Gloria Arroyo and the senators and representatives named in the PDAF mess, the objective appears to be the annihilation of the opposition. If this is not political prosecution, what else is it?

 

President Aquino, a member of Congress before becoming president, and all other members of the legislature could have collected their share of their PDAF allocations during the COA audit year 2007 to 2009. Singling out only members of the opposition as culpable for receiving bribes under the PDAF scam, while overlooking others simply because of their affiliation and support of the president’s political party, is a hallmark of a systematic prosecution for political purposes.

 

Besides, PDAF represents only 1.3 percent of the national budget. This means that there are other and bigger sources of corruption for which the current government is being opaque about.

 

The President’s so-called social fund, which is actually discretionary funding not subject to oversight and audit, is far larger than PDAF and about 1.5 trillion pesos. If the President is sincere in his desire to wipe out corruption in government, he should start being transparent at home. His entire cabinet may not be as clean as the president would like the public to believe.

 

There is a public perception, which the current president will probably admit, that the entire Philippine government, from the Executive to the Legislative to the Judiciary, has been immersed in the culture of open and pervasive graft and plunder. This cancer of corruption has once earned the country of being “the most corrupt country in Asia,” or the “perpetual sick man of Asia.”

 

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International for the year 2012 ranks the Philippines at 105 among countries and territories on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. A ranking of 105 means that the country is more corrupt from among the countries surveyed, with a lower ranking indicating a country is least corrupt, like Denmark which stands at number 1. The Philippines is virtually tied with Mali, a country in West Africa that is in turmoil because of Islamist rebellion. This index of corruption for the Philippines would certainly be altered by the PDAF scandal depending on the results of the ongoing investigation and possible prosecution of all those involved.

 

What is probably more disturbing with the PDAF mess is not the exposé of the massive use of these funds but how those accused of corruption are being prosecuted. Prosecution of the corrupt in government, if done honestly and through due process of law, will change not only our perception of corruption but strengthen everyone’s respect for the rule of law. But if the corrupt are prosecuted for the purpose of decimating the opposition and preserving the status quo of those in power, this will only encourage more corruption, disdain for accountability, and the perpetuation of a culture of impunity.

 

Totalitarian or repressive governments do not have a monopoly of political prosecutions. They can also happen in a democratic system, albeit a failed one, like the Philippines. It is quite easy to spot when a government considers it politically expedient to prosecute its enemies, detractors and critics.

 

Former Chief Justice Corona was an easy target and thus became a fall guy for the previous administration that he served with blind loyalty. Deposing him for his failure to honestly disclose his statement of assets and liabilities net worth (SALN) is a shallow rationale when his colleagues in the court or even other high-ranking officials of government might equally be guilty of the same omission. Corona was indeed guilty for serving his master by accepting his midnight appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which shows a lack of integrity when he could have simply allowed the incoming president to exercise that prerogative.

 

The senators and other members of Congress named as respondents in the PDAF complaint represent a clear and present threat to the president’s rule, thus it becomes politically expedient to prosecute them in order to preserve the transfer of power to his anointed successor(s).

 

Janet Napoles, suspected mastermind of the P10-billion peso scam in
government custody. Photo by hereisgone2003.

In the PDAF case, the justice system is being exploited by the incumbent government to preserve itself and ensure continuity of its stranglehold of power to the next government, which of course will be sympathetic to its administration and will simply ignore whatever abuses or corrupt activities it had committed. The timing and circumstances of the continuing PDAF investigation are particularly suspect because if the government is successful, criminal charges against the accused may disqualify them for running in office in the next elections.

 

We have the flashpoints of whether the present PDAF investigation and prosecution is politically motivated. We all know that all those named in the complaint are high-profile members of the president’s opposition. They may seek election to the high office of the land, which is a threshold inquiry. This is not saying that being in the political opposition carries an expectation of immunity because those in the opposition can still commit a crime.

 

Plunder is such a high crime that prosecuting those accused would be equally difficult, but it can achieve so much media coverage and publicity that the current government may need to deflect public dissatisfaction of the President’s inept leadership. For instance, incessant news coverage of the PDAF scandal can mute the ongoing difficulty and frustration of President Aquino and his military in containing the Muslim unrest in Mindanao. In the same way that President Aquino uses favourable ratings of his administration despite the failure of an increased economic performance, like a spike in investor confidence when this has not been translated in an increase in employment and reduction in poverty.

 

The conduct of the investigation of the PDAF scandal has also a bearing on the political motivation of the government to prosecute its detractors. Parallel investigations likewise add to the confusion, such as the Office of Ombudsman conducting a review of the complaint, the Department of Justice continuing to forage additional evidence so it can add more names in the list of the accused, or the Senate convening a Blue Ribbon committee for its own investigation of the scandal.

 

The trial of the respondents, of course, would be the biggest indicator of whether the accused are being politically prosecuted. But we don’t know yet if this case would see the light of day. The Department of Justice seems to be conducting the case in the press, so the public is becoming more anxious to see a public lynching. When mainstream newspapers and the social media attempt to build public sympathy or support the charges brought, the stronger the indication of a politically motivated prosecution.

 

It is entirely possible both that the accused legislators are guilty of the crime of plunder and that the prosecution is politically motivated. But whether the prosecution is politically motivated is something we can separate from the question of guilt or innocence of the accused. With its sweeping mantra of daang matuwid, everyone in government could be found guilty of plunder and other forms of bribery. And when the prosecutor is out to get the accused as part of a political agenda, the act of prosecution is an assault on democratic institutions.

 

The human rights lawyer Scott Horton, in a 2008 article in Harper’s Magazine, wrote about Andrei Januaryevich Vyshinsky, Stalin’s prosecutor, who is best known for his use of prosecution as a political tool. Vyshinsky used the criminal justice system to destroy Stalin’s enemies. He pioneered the notion of the “show trial” in which the defendant would be brought before the world as a broken and hollow man, confessing his crimes like a one act in a longer play in which his crimes would be staged before the world. Vyshinsky would not only eliminate the accused, but even destroy his memory, limiting the likelihood that an opposition group might form around him.

 

At the rate the PDAF investigation is going, such a conclusion that Vyshinsky envisaged is not a far-fetched scenario.