In the dark days of apartheid in South Africa, detainees who, despite
being white, resolutely opposed the white supremacist regime, were
often subjected to mean punishment. The scholar and writer Ruth First,
charged with treason, was the first white woman to be jailed under the
so-called 90-Day Detention Law.
In her memoir, “117 Days,” she recalls how, after being held in
solitary confinement for 90 days, she was told she was free to go. Her
jailers let her make a phone call to her family so she could be fetched.
Then, as she prepared to leave, all dressed up for that joyous day, she
was told she was being rearrested.
She writes: “Left to face my second round of ninety days, I was
filled with loathing and bitterness against the Security Branch
detectives who had stage-managed my humiliating phony release and then
rearrest; but I was also overcome, for perhaps the first time since my
initial arrest, by a wave of self-pity… I sat on the edge of the bed,
still in my navy outfit, and shook with sobs.”
One can only suppose that this is more or less how President Duterte
wants Sen. Antonio Trillanes to feel after invalidating the amnesty the
previous administration had granted to the young senator, and ordering
his immediate rearrest. He probably expects to see this angry rebel, who
has minced no words in his attacks against him, lower his head,
helpless in his loathing and bitterness.
If so, Mr. Duterte and his willing band of enablers and implementers
do not know a thing about the spirit of defiant heroism. Ruth First
never gave her captors “the satisfaction of an outburst that would
reveal my feelings.” She struggled to keep a “tight hold on my emotions
and to let no sound of them escape me,” until she knew she was
completely by herself.
One expects no less from Sonny Trillanes or, for that matter, from
another jailed senator, Leila de Lima. They may occasionally cry or feel
depressed. But they have proven themselves to be brave souls beyond
intimidation. Trillanes, a veteran of prison life and an irrepressible
rebel against all injustice and corruption, seems to flourish even more
when he is targeted. Bolstered by her unshakable faith in God and by the
steady support of family and friends, De Lima keeps busy in detention
issuing her own critical analysis of the nation’s situation, and shows
no signs of despair, exhaustion or regret.
If an assassin’s bullet or poison does not stop them, they will surely outlive Mr. Duterte.
In contrast, by allowing his primal thirst for vengeance to define
his presidency, and by finding common cause with those who seek to
regain public esteem after the people had rejected them for betraying
the public’s trust, Mr. Duterte has hardly any time left for the urgent
matters that demand the singular attention of the nation’s highest
office. Rushing back from another overseas trip, he is no doubt haunted
by the thought that some of history’s tyrants lost their positions while
they were abroad.
He comes home to a country reeling from the effects of rapid
inflation, the sharp depreciation of the peso, and, amid a sustained
decline in the value of stock market shares, a growing skepticism about
the nation’s future. The people may care little for what happens to De
Lima and Trillanes, perhaps even seeing in their travails a warranted
comeuppance. But, they will not keep quiet when the prices of food and
other basic necessities begin to rise way beyond their earning
capacities, when the purchasing power of their money is depleted daily,
when they lose their jobs, and when they see their children die from
lack of medicines and medical care. That is when they begin to ask where
the President is, or whether he knows what he is doing.
For many people, the economy, the law, and politics itself, are
complex things that only a few can really fathom. But, they can quickly
sense when their leaders are being honest with them, or when they are
feeding them nonsense.
Revoking the amnesty that freed Senator Trillanes in 2010 on the
ground that he never filed an application for amnesty and never admitted
guilt is utter nonsense. Ignoring news videos showing him swearing to
the truthfulness of the information he wrote in his amnesty application,
the government insists he must produce a certified true copy of his
application for amnesty because the original allegedly could not be
found in the government’s files. Unless there is valid reason to think
that Trillanes’ amnesty had been fraudulently obtained, to demand to see
the application form is sheer persecution and harassment.
We apply for all kinds of documents during our lifetime—passport, a
driver’s license, a clearance, a marriage license, etc.—knowing fully
well that we are not expected to keep a certified true copy of the
application itself. We make sure we have the passport, license, permit
or certificate at hand when demanded by persons in authority. But, the
duty to keep the various forms that have to be accomplished in the
course of the application process lies solely with the government office
or agency concerned.
The primary function of the law in any society is to stabilize
expectations about what is allowed and what is not. Without law,
behavior would be subject to the whims of the powerful. All contracts,
licenses, passports and government-issued permits would be treated as
fake, unless the bearer could prove that he or she went through the
entire process of applying. There is no apt word to describe this
Kafkaesque attitude but meanness of spirit.
public.lives@gmail.com
source: Philippine Daily Inquirer Column
By: Randy David
