Truth and lies

“PEOPLE like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies,” says Mexican author Don Miguel Ruiz.

Negrenses have a deadly conflict in Sagay, and it resulted in nine deaths.

The New Peoples’Army blamed the massacre to “mercenaries” calling themselves the Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) under the command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’(AFP) Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (Scaa).

And from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, we get this: “It is obvious that there is a sinister plot, there is some orchestration. We see that this is well-orchestrated and there is indeed a plot. Meaning, when they put the nine poor civilians in the farm, they know that incident will already happen,” Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Carlito Galvez Jr.

Whoa, do I detect truth, half-truths and true lies from both sides?

According to another group, we get this: the massacre of nine farmers in Sagay City, Negros Occidental last week is being blamed on the alleged “private army” of “powerful landlords” in the area.

In a statement on Saturday, the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) stood by a fact-finding mission’s result linking Hacienda Nene’s lessee or “aryendador” to the killing.

The mission was organized by the NFSW. Perceived as connected with the Left, Karapatan, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, and the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura and other organizations took part in the investigation.

Unless Google failed me, the most that NFSW can say is that they “strongly believe that former elements (individuals) of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA)

who are now members of the Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu) or militiamen are the masterminds of the shooting incident.”

The public is being taken for a ride by both sides in their propaganda war.

Can both sides take concerns not to the court of public opinion but in the court of law? I don’t care what you believe. Prove it. The burden of proof is in the accuser. Both are you just speculation.

As lawyers would say to a judge, I object, your Honor. Speculation!”