When Dark Clouds Hanged Over Philippine Democracy - Democracy Tinkered With by Dark Hands Those were the dark period in the nations recent history. Philippine democracy was not only under some dark clouds, as the New York Times put it, but in fact directly under puppet-manipulation of a few dark hands. The Mafia could not have done much worse, the Yakuza with its stricter honor code might have ran the country better. A few top officials, who co-engineered fake election results (in the 2004 presidential, the last manual-count election in the Philippines) to favor themselves and their allies co-ruled the country which its key departments and agencies apportioned among themselves. These are the same officials who 3 years earlier exploited the Estrada presidency weakened by allegations of massive corruption and wrongdoings. Spilled Milk? Our Apathy & Inaction Should Let Officials Steal from Central Phils Rehab Peoples Power Revolution 2 (EDSA 3), instigated by the civil society and actively backed by the late Cory Aquino and late Cardinal Sin, ousted Estrada after 3 years in power (elected to 6 years presidency, getting the highest ever winning margin - mostly from the poor masses - in Philippine history). That brought to power record-breaking kleptocrats who misused democracy to legitimize their intent to hold on to power for another 6 years. That gave them all the time in the world to steal hundreds of billions of pesos from the countrys development funds (which should have helped prevent many deaths and total devastation of communities in Central Philippines). We now uncover more and more of it, what for? Better yet, we more actively try to prevent such now. A Trillion Pesos (1 thousand million) Lost to Corruption - to Organized Official Criminals In a poor country where roughly 20 billion US dollars can help a million families afford decent housing, some capital to put up simple businesses which in turn make them afford college education that can help them break free from the cycle of poverty - not one single member of the admittedly-weak civil society or institution organized anything to prevent another of such from being stolen again. More. 10 billion pesos, a hundred billion worth of overpriced, half-completed and ghost infrastructure projects, billions more of stolen funds from many government agencies even from foreign-funded projects - it all made the headlines, nonetheless issues that Filipinos simply turn their backs on. On top of a trillion lost to smuggling facilitated by organized crime lords and corrupt officials-lords. The donors for the rehabilitation of provinces nearly devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda are justified about their worries of some of the funds being stolen. I say, worry no more, accept the fact, just like the local civil society, who mostly do nothing about it anyway. In my private capacity, I worked to help a few families, victims of Typhoon Reming. Still in danger and far from recovering from the traumas I suffered as an organized crime victim, I was dumbfounded to witness officials misuse donations for selfish political ends. Plus of course the regular required kickbacks from suppliers. In the Philippines, in places not frequented by natural calamities, or in calamity-prone areas when nature is silent and even bless the poor (with big catches of commercial fish, the fishermen in Central Philippines for example), most of the local officials inflict long-term damages (man made or aggravated disasters) to the quality of lives of these millions, to their chances of rising from poverty and to their very future economic prospects by stealing from their development funds - ask Filipino workers in your cities about it, their very presence in your place testimony to their hopelessness here. Cory Aquino, Asias icon of democracy, so incensed at the blatant massive corruption and widespread grave human rights abuses by that administration that she, in the days and final years she battled with cancer, actively called for the resignation of Arroyo. President Aquino, his son, rose to the presidency amidst the national grief when she passed away before the 2010 national elections. Hes so far achieved exceptionally good economic performance, and consistently maintained his high popularity ratings for good governance, evident now even to the simple poor families. Indeed we have achieved more than decent economic progress in the 9 years of the Arroyo administration, but a few top officials and powerful men who had rather free hands to blatantly steal government funds (wholesale) practically held the president they helped installed hostage (revelations of election cheating after the 2004 national election rocked her grip on power, evidences and witnesses for such, including allegations of massive corruption, held by these officials), and together they held our democracy hostage. The civil society, who helped the sitting president ascend to her throne after ousting Estrada in 2001, remained, well, civil to her administration, staying silent or giving it simple slap-in-wrist treatment every after revelations of high crimes, grave human rights abuses (against civilians, some potential whistle-blowers - not just alleged members of insurgency groups), record-breaking theft of government funds and mega-kickbacks from artificially created mega-projects. The local mainstream media, with few exceptions, feasted on perhaps record-breaking PR fees (direct bribes) that followed everytime. Econ & Political Crisis, Violent Struggles & Atrocities Can Be Decades in the Making The Maguindanao Massacre, a world-record for the number of journalists killed in a single incident, was allegedly committed by and upon the orders of a clan and political patriarch and his sons who gave the ruling partys national candidates record-breaking votes in some areas in excess of the number of voters or of those who actually voted. Some victims, confided to me by the late victims colleague, occasionally received bribe money from their cold-bloodied killers, who they thought were their casual friends. This practice by appointed and elected public officials and crime lords (and even police officials) of bribing journalists (many of them actually solicit it via hostile reporting of their subjects) is so prevalent and entrenched in the Philippines. The Horrors We Endured In this national political backdrop that I, practically threatened for many years for my own revelations of organized crime operations I discovered, and for many other reasons I could only then speculate (in fact mostly clueless about, at first) about, that I waged a very discreet campaign against severe corruption, grave human rights abuses (especially the threatening of potential whistle-blowers) and the undermining of our very democracy to serve the interests of and relevant political ends of the new crime lords, many of them emerged among top officials then. I proudly say that even though I braved many murder and assassination attempts, I gained much success as to calling the attention of many other stakeholders in our nations freedom and democracy as to the real situation here, from the ground and from the point of view of a non-political private person, who worked independently. I was mostly a politically-neutral being then, mostly concerned and involved only in my private preoccupations including running a new business we successfully built from scratch after I got victimized in a series of daylight in-your-face robberies that devastated me and my 2 nephew-dependents in 2000/1. That sent me to a tailspin of personal crisis, and my innocent curiosity that got me to EDSA 3 (a revolution by the poor, that the Arroyo administration labeled mobs) where I heard the legitimate pleas of the poor and the powerless (some of them old folks) startled me to think about broader social involvements. What Did I Do in the Years of My Healing? Helped Helpless Others Be Spared... You cant imagine that during my healing period, I took so much pains to help individuals, families and communities even as I was still in much pain too. It helped me. The traumas that I suffered is unimaginable, I wonder how I survived it all. Yet during these times that so many of my new innovative projects were conceptualized and born. Among those that we started were an anti-poverty education system, a village health management system - even a typhoon preparation and survival guide. Many wonderfully compassionate new friends helped me, and they deserved all the credits for my new and future accomplishments. I cant just tell the world about them yet. My life was stolen from me by persons I trusted. My life was directly and seriously threatened by powerful public officials. I was a target of assassination and murder by organized crime lords thriving within the or even running components of the government itself. In my many years of hard labor to recover from the traumas and total personal devastation, in my journey towards healing, in my long quest for what seem as elusive and now maybe impossible justice - yet again we got victimized by familiar perpetrators that include police officials working for organized crime lords, some of them still thriving inside the host organization that is the PNP. Thousands of Rather Decent and Honest Policemen Want Clean-Up of their System It is not my intention or desire to create animosity towards policemen and police officials, many of them perform their duties decently and some even go beyond as they do heroic acts voluntarily - in fact majority of them not-so-secretly want to be more proud of their uniforms. It is not to give an impression that there were no exceptionally, relatively very honest public officials during the Arroyo administration. Even in extermination / concentration camps where millions were mercilessly killed (most cruel methods that animal rights activists now wouldnt allow a very sick dog killed that way), the Nazis had its share of exceptionally kind and brave officers who defied official policies and orders to act more on their conscience. The Reality is Uglier Than the Truth They They Mask With Calibrated Statistics But to me, the reality is, we have even more cruel police officials who, in peace time, in a democratic country, some police officials cause more pains to more poor victims and poor citizens than the more cruel soldiers of Mussolini or Hitler, even Milosevics or zealous implementors of genocide in Darfur among recent ones. Genocides, explosions of violence, civil wars, disintegration of countries, seemingly sudden prevalence of violent crimes, systematic grave human rights abuses. massacre and murder of civil society leaders - far-fetched now, unbelievable realities all of the sudden. Thats world history, 1st year high school. More than our complacency, our apathy and inaction on these yet non-mainstream issues, its silent and inconvenient-to-think proliferation, can make it all happen before we know it. Decades in the making - then we say, as we take even far more pains to mitigate it when some day, one day, we are compelled to confront it anyway. There is a proliferating organized crime operations within and involving officers of the Philippine National Police. We are being hunted and a plot to get us murdered na hindi halata is long in place. The orders were given, and the petty and serious criminals who are under their disposal will execute it. We seek help. As we help many of our countrys unfortunate citizens not fall prey to these criminals, now and in the future. At least starting with the group of police officials who actively seek our demise. When Organized Criminals Win, We All Suffer Long-Term When that happens, organized criminals win. And we just shrug it all off until we ourselves, or our very loved ones get victimized. Then we cry spilled milk. We cry wolf, but wolves already all over in our midst, many even in uniform - everyone notices but accept it is as an inescapable reality. Then you will be shocked when asked, by superficially concerned persons and even relatives: What did you do to bring it upon yourself? What did your son or raped and killed daughter do to bring it upon herself? What did you do to be theatened by a police officer? Well, sometimes, as much as glance at their illicit-trade transaction. We witnessed far more than that. So much more. We are to be killed. Ernest Barraquias Jr. - A Guinea Pig I made myself a guinea-pig to help address or at least call attention to some of the issues I discussed here. At one time, yet again, and in the midst of my hard labor to recover from traumas and personal devastations at that, someone who turned out to be a bagwoman of some officials caused us to run for our lives - when we didnt met her demands for additional bribes and she accused one of my assistants of audio recording her unreasonable demands. I endured hunger and suffered total financial devastations again because of that - all their offers to appease me through millions worth of contracts and cash gifts I refused. When I staged a hunger strike to protest our victimization of organized crime lords and other serious criminals protected by powerful officials, a decision that nearly killed me, offers were worth fortunes. Hindi ako nagmamalinis, but had I been a little bit more selfish, I should be swimming in cash wealth right now. I can be selfish, I can have all the failings of a normal human being. I am far from being an upright man, judging by the moral standards I was taught by the priests, the nuns (I was an altar boy for many years and studied in 3 Catholic schools) even other religious men who preached on me (one of them masterminded a robbery that devastated me). But I was not a public official, a police official, even a religious leader who caused the destruction of the lives of so many people and families they were supposed to serve and protect. And ordered the murder, as they wield their powers, of those who get in their righteous ways. Fear, helplessness and hopelessness can shackle to inaction and submission anyone subjected to just a fraction of what I endured since childhood. My single poor Father, when once begged on his knees, as high-powered guns were on his head because they accused him of letting a man who crossed them pass through our partly-fenced property, said something to me: You never challenge a powerful man, even a simple man who wields a gun. For a single but protective parent of 8, a remarkable sacrifice. I did otherwise, because I want to prevent at least a single family, even an individual from unnecessarily suffering horrors in the hands of abusive public law enforcement official (who has a hundred ready excuses to commit such and a hundred more ways to escape accountability) that I endured.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:34:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015