A question of ‘heroes’

ON National Heroes Day last Monday, the government comes out with its traditional message, extolling us to “honor” the “nobles deeds and sacrifice” of heroes of the past by “upholding the rule of law, protecting our nation and fostering goodwill among our sel ves.”

For that, we wonder if that message is intended for Duterte’s minions: the police who are involved in the killings of Kian delos Santos and other innocent youth in the crazed war on drugs, to the soldiers who have been harassing Lumads and farmers, and the administration’s social media warriors who are dividing our country through derision and fake news.

On National Heroes Day, Kian delos Santos, the 17-year old extra-judicially killed was laid to rest. No hero has come for him, except family and a throng of neighbors, friends and sympathizers.

Worse is, Duterte’s defenders mocked his burial and said how the people are turning Kian into a saint. Going back to Duterte’s National Heroes message, this is not the way to go to be noble or to have goodwill.

Nevertheless, Kian’s death compelled Duterte to face for the first time a family that was a victim of his government’s war on drugs, to commiserate and to assure the grieving parents of justice. I think there is still no relief until the investigation could send to jail those who put the bullets in Kian’s body.

National Heroes Day marked the 98th day of the Marawi siege, of the hundred thousands of Marawi residents displaced by this war against the Maute group. As you read this, it is already 100 days past.

In the beginning of that war, the government painted the soldiers as heroes or defenders of democracy. But within 100 days, Marawi residents remember how soldiers joke on women, telling them to behave so they can get married.

In 100 days, Marawi residents knew who bombed and destroyed their houses. It is not the enemies called Maute, but rather the “heroes” called the AFP.

It’s difficult to think of heroes as simply those who take up a gun to defend abstract enemies. Such gun culture turned ironic, when a soldier who survived Marawi for three months was returning home to Zamboanga del Sur, but was shot by a police man because he was suspected as a terrorist.

It seems this is how government wants to paint to us the ideas of heroism. Given this is also history month, I think we should better brush up again our Philippine history, to know that the heroes are not just generals and soldiers, but also thinkers, writers, patriots and defenders of the poor, from the era of the Katipunan to World War II to the Martial Law years. There were no soldiers who were touted as heroes in Martial Law, except for a few officials who quit the Armed Forces, and some even joining the activists.

So much for heroes in a time of fake news and bloodlust. We should be better than this.