Of fairy tales, destiny and karma
(Last of 2 parts)
WHERE was Rodrigo Duterte during these dark days of Davao City or when Davao Death Squad surfaced? Digong was a new lawyer, served briefly as a Tanodbayan investigator and then was appointed as Assistant City Fiscal. Politics was not even a figment in his imagination. Now and then his name was mentioned in the media as the investigating fiscal against charges of murder filed against suspected NPAs, soldiers, policemen, and CHDFs.
Duterte is a child of destiny. When the dictatorship was toppled, his mother Soledad who is known to us hoi pollois as “Nanay Soleng” was appointed by Cory Aquino during her revolutionary government as Vice Mayor of Davao City. It was to recognize her for her central role in the Yellow Friday Movement in the city that denounced the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. But Nanay Soleng refused and declined the offer. Cory’s point-man in Region 11, Jesus “Chito” V. Ayala then proposed Digong. To cut short the process, the name “Rodrigo” was substituted in lieu of “Soledad”.
Digong won in the regular election in 1988 which pitted him against appointee-mayor Zafiro Respicio and Pala who was still basking in popularity. Pala was featured as a cover story of Asia Week. Pala came extremely close to the two. When he heard that Respicio will file an election protest over the conduct of counting, Pala took a different turn and reading his speech written in a half sheet of yellow pad paper conceded defeat to Duterte.
I do not wish to defile the death of Pala, but at the height of his popularity and fame, he refused to be counseled. He was on his own and he earned enemies not only from the NPA but from businessmen, military, and police officers, politicians, and from our own ranks in the media. He was later accused of murder.
Mayor Duterte who, at one time helped him let the loose ends meet when he was down, have abandoned him. His few remaining friends dissociated themselves as Pala became a loose cannon. He was too hot to handle. Only time delayed his ultimate fate.
Duterte’s administration was crucial in Davao City’s history. The CPP/NPA had lost control of the city following the violent feud in the ranks of the NPA when they executed in public three of their own “tax collectors” in Agdao.
Unknown to the executioners, the three victims are close relatives of Boy Ponsa, their top NPA Commander in their biggest mass base in Agdao. Ponsa waged counteroperations against his comrades aided by the call of Jun Pala urging the masses to rise against the NPAs. His exact call was “alsa masa”! Hundreds perished in the encounters dubbed as “operation ahos” and “operation zombies”.
With the NPA out, drug and other crime syndicates crept into the city. The most vicious of these was the drug syndicate, which quickly established distribution networks not only in the streets but inside university campuses. The countermeasures against the growing menace of the syndicate ended only when a new Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency head Efren Alquizar was assigned in the region. In one occasion, he presented to media a list of drug suspects numbering to about 300. What followed later was shocking because many drug pushers were killed. Probers suspected that the mysterious executions were meant to erase the path that would lead to the identity
the drug lords.
Fast forward in 2009, Commission on Human Rights Chair Leila De Lima, conducted a probe against what she dubbed as Extra-Judicial Killings in Davao City. Her probe team was composed of men she picked from the national headquarters of their respective command. When she started with the probe in June, Duterte submitted a leave of absence as mayor and also gave up his police supervisory power. She grilled policemen, barangay officials and Duterte was not excluded. After four months of non-stop probe which led her and her team to digging several suspected graveyards she failed to produce a single piece of evidence.
De Lima, Human Rights Watch of New York, and Amnesty International claimed they recorded hundreds of EJK victims.
When De Lima was appointed Secretary of Justice by Pres. Benigno Aquino, her successor, Etta Rosales continued with her probe. Rosales exited but only her ranting reverberates in anger to this day. She was replaced by a certain Chito Gascon. As an aside even the United Nations Human Rights Watch dispatched a rapporteur to conduct its own investigation.
Now Senator of the Republic of the Philippines, De Lima revives her consuming desire to pin Duterte on the issue of DDS whom she and her prevaricating witnesses were claiming was organized by Digong.
De Lima has left the Senate having to face her own case over a magma of charges resulting from the discovery that the State Penitentiary was the central headquarters of drug distribution in the country during her watch as Justice Secretary.
This episode is a movie in the making and fit for a documentary because the people involved are real, pulsating with feelings and emotions. But this being a true story it might be classified under X category.