Hymns of repentance

Acertain senator was quoted some time ago as saying that Filipinos supporting the intentions of the International Criminal Court to probe the Duterte administration’s bloody tokhang campaign should be made to sing the national anthem 1,000 times to regain their sense of patriotism. The clear message was that, if you were in favor of an international body looking into local crimes and liabilities, you were being anti-Filipino.

It wasn’t surprising, of course, given that the good senator was among those prominently mentioned as possible defendants in the case. In jest, he said that if he were found guilty, he would miss his grandchildren if he were incarcerated in The Hague. And just to be sure, he added that not all people in jail are guilty – he certainly wasn’t.

Without commenting on the merits or demerits of a hypothetical ICC case against officials of the previous administration – something we have enough lawyers on both sides to perorate upon – I’ll just observe that the quality of justice the senator and his likely dock mates can expect from the ICC will surely be far better than that received by the victims of summary and extrajudicial executions under the regime of tokhang. At the very least, guilty or not, they will be alive and reasonably comfortable, although they might temporarily miss the company of family and friends, as those bereaved by tokhang have come to experience for all eternity.

I was intrigued by the suggestion that repeated singing of “Lupang Hinirang” would make a better Filipino out of me, or at least make me think of the ICC as some kind of fire-breathing Godzilla threatening to incinerate the Filipino race off the face of the earth.

There are far more effective songs for instilling love of country. Yoyoy Villame’s “Philippine Geography” will teach us more about the country we say we’re dying for than our anthem, which must have been sung hundreds of times in the halls of Congress without much palpable effect on the patriotism of some occupants. At least I’m assuming it’s regularly sung there; if not, then perhaps our senator can start a little closer to home.

(As for professing one’s innocence, oldtimers will remember Diomedes Maturan’s “Huwag Kang Manalig sa Bulong-Bulungan” (remade by Victor Wood). Even Billy Joel warbled: “Although this is a fight I can lose, the accused is an innocent man!”)

On a more serious tangent, let me swipe a page from a recent talk given by UP president Angelo A. Jimenez, himself a lawyer, at a seminar of police officials on the thorny topic of national security and human rights:

“Our police officers should be commended for the seizure of a total of P6.2 billion worth of illegal drugs in the first half of 2023. The PNP’s Intensified Cleanliness Program, aligned with the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drugs Strategy, has employed a coordinated approach among government agencies to create drug-free communities. This shows that a serious and successful war on drugs can be undertaken without any needless loss of life, for as long as we observe the law, fight corruption and remember the need for compassion in a just society. Even drug suspects have rights – indeed, even convicted prisoners – and we maintain our moral superiority by respecting those rights, even as we dispense justice. Only then and only thus can we regain our people’s trust.

“Ours is a society that operates on leadership by example. If people see their public officials and law enforcers doing the right thing, they will follow suit. If they see the law being flouted by these very same people – such as unauthorized government SUVs using the bus lanes along EDSA – they feel entitled and emboldened to do wrong themselves. Exemplary behavior at the top will create and strengthen the moral foundation for a responsible and lawabiding citizenry. We cannot demand what we ourselves cannot supply or enforce.”

Frankly, I myself doubt that a fullblown ICC investigation will prosper under the present dispensation, which reportedly promised the senator that not a hair of his (but then, where’s the hair?) would be touched by the ICC, back when the two camps were – just to use an idiomatic expression, and meaning no malice – as thick as thieves.

Now that the knives are out between the erstwhile allies, the ICC card seems to be in play again, teasing us with the possibility of justice being done, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s just too big a risk for those in power to take, too wide a door to open – like Cha-cha for ostensibly just economic provisions. Who knows what other crimes the ICC will unearth, who else they will indict and how far back they will go? Once you give people a taste of respect for human rights, why, they’d be at it like potato chips – they’ll keep wanting more. There’d be chaos in the streets and no, sir, we can’t have any of that, just when we need law and order.

For this reason alone, I don’t think our good-humored senator has anything to worry about, neither from the Palace nor from The Hague. He can finish his term, retire to his farm in peace, shoot the breeze (or something else) with his old boss and have his memoirs ghostwritten. Unless, of course, a certain lady succeeds in clawing her way to the top, in which case the senator – still fairly young as senior politicos go – can expect a new lease on his public life and serve afresh, perhaps in the Cabinet, where men and women of action belong, rather than in the Senate, where they’re reduced to preening and tweaking their moustaches.

Someone with far greater and indisputable jurisdiction will take over this case and pronounce ultimate judgment; he will need no rapporteur, no investigating party, no authorization, no earthly prison; his verdict will be unappealable. His brand of justice will make the ICC look like talent-show judges by comparison. Those found guilty will be killing lots of time in a very warm place. Some people better start learning and singing hymns of repentance.

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H