Dangerous Circumstances


A friend of mine called me up some days ago to ask if I had the sensation of being followed. I said no, though I probably wouldn’t notice anyway if I were. Though I make it a point to be aware of my surroundings, as Liam Neeson bid Christian Bale do in “Batman Begins,” I doubt if I’d be able to spot a tail if it was tied to my back. I tend to be lost in thought on the occasions that I am walking or driving, muttering to myself, a habit that has an entirely unwelcome effect of making people give me a wide berth. When driving, I often end up in places I shouldn’t be.


My friend said he did. For some nights now, a car or two would idle in front of their house, then go. He noticed they were the same cars, though he couldn’t make out their plate numbers. He also had the feeling of being followed to his place of work and watched.


Paranoia? Maybe. But my friend is not into drugs, even if one bottle of beer too many has been known to produce drug-like effects on him. No, he can’t afford it. His "kapraningan" [paranoia] comes from the fact that he was a student activist during his college years. Though he has long ceased to be a student activist in deed, if not in thought and word, he figures Norberto Gonzales is not one to note the difference. He figures the disappearance of Jonas Burgos is a prelude to a wholesale crackdown on all political activists, past and present, active and passive, armed and unarmed. Crackdown is the other word for murder.


Well, the way things are, I can’t say I blame him. The impunity with which Burgos was made to disappear and the intractability with which government officials, civilian and military, are greeting his kin’s efforts to find him, or find justice for him, can’t possibly dissuade the wholesale murder of crows, or journalists and activists. The antiterrorism law, which is poised to take effect any time, now guarantees it. It wraps an obscenity in the robes of legality, like a rotting corpse in finery.


Raul Gonzalez says the government will neither use it recklessly nor fecklessly. It will use it with just the right amount of force and judiciousness. Of course, he says, the law, couched in government Newspeak as the “Human Security Act,” will bug people. He means that, of course, in the surveillance sense of the word, even if its victims are bound to appreciate only its sense of pissing them off. But "sori na lang," that’s the price to pay for freedom. The HSA, he says, will respect the media’s right to privileged information and communication, but only up to a point. That point is breached when journalists become “contaminated.” “For example, when there is suspicion against you. You are now part of a group that is planning to terrorize, to do harm to the state.”


At the very least what’s so warped about all this is, well: Juan Ponce Enrile, Norberto Gonzales, Raul Gonzalez and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Enrile sponsored the bill in the Senate, Gonzales will carry it out, Gonzalez will interpret its legality, and Arroyo will have it for as long as she deems terrorists to be around. Enrile, of course, was an architect of martial law, Marcos’ chief henchman before Fabian Ver supplanted him for that dubious honor. Gonzales, well, he’s the security part of the term, “human security,” his most formidable accomplishment in that respect being to try to sell Philippine sovereignty through Venable to the US Congress. Gonzalez is the human part of the term, “human security,” his most formidable achievements in turn being to call Philip Alston a “muchacho” [houseboy] of the UN, say Cory bugged Kris, and suggest Julia Campbell was asking for it by traipsing alone in the wilds of Banaue. What can one say? He’s only human.


And Arroyo, well, didn’t somebody bug her bugging Garci into making her win by a million votes? But that piece of surveillance may not be admitted as evidence because it suffers from the most glaring legal deformity of all: It’s true.


Kind of reminds you of that local folk song, “Doon Po Sa Amin”: “Sumayaw ang pilay,/ Kumanta ang pipi,/ Nanood ang bulag,/ Nakinig ang bingi" ["The lame danced, the mute sang, the blind watched, and the deaf listened”].


Under normal circumstances, trusting Enrile, Gonzales, Gonzalez and Arroyo to fight terrorism is like trusting Mike Velarde to fight loud suits. But these are not normal circumstances. These are circumstances when people end up being presumed terrorists like Jonas Burgos, a true son to his father, who tried to better the lives of farmers, and Musa Dimasidsing, a true educator, who bequeathed to this country a lesson in honesty. Yes, presumed so, if only implicitly. Hermogenes Esperon has been free to laugh off the Burgoses’ indictment of him, and they spat on Dimasidsing’s ashes when they counted the fake votes he was at pains to expose. Giving this regime more powers to fight terrorism is like giving congressmen more money to fight poverty.

Indeed, these are circumstances when cheaters are rewarded with public office and whistle-blowers are punished with court-martial, when lies are rewarded with longevity and honesty punished by death, when innocence is prosecuted and guilt exonerated, when wrong is right and right is wrong, when evil is good and good evil, when impoverished peasants fighting for food and water are called terrorists and greedy men and women terrorizing the people are called government. My friend has every reason to fear for his life. In these circumstances, you’re innocent, be "praning." Be very, very praning.


But better yet, be angry. Be very, very angry. And realize there’s only one thing to do with bugs, like cockroaches.




Squash them.