A postscript to a trial
As they waited for the Ampatuan massacre case promulgation outside the gates of Camp Bagong Diwa, scores of journalists and advocates led by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines staged a peaceful demonstration to demand an end to impunity.
The treatment that they got from the police illustrates what’s in store for journalists beyond and after the historic promulgation. The police “welcomed” them with truncheons and an order to disperse. On top of everything, the police also confiscated without cause the mural they brought along.
Titled “Defend Press Freedom,” the NUJP-commissioned mural was made by visual artists belonging to the Concerned Artists of the Philippines. Both NUJP and CAP of course are mainstays in the fight to assert freedom of expression for journalists, artists, and the public. It is thus no surprise to see them rally together.
As of presstime, the Philippine National Police has not returned the NUJP-CAP mural. Neither have officers given an official explanation on why the mural was confiscated or stolen in the first place. What legal steps the NUJP and CAP would take against the PNP, we don’t know yet but I hope everyone would support them.
The police behavior towards the NUJP-led rally and the police theft of the mural are reminders of the problem at the core of impunity. Without cause or basis, the ground commander just decided to consider the rallyists as enemies who should be removed from the gates. Whoever that ground commander was, he forgot and forgot to consider that NUJP represents the scores of journalists who the Ampatuans ordered killed alongside their political foes.
What’s the worst the rallying journalists could possibly do right in front of a major prison? The police cannot even consider the possibility that the journalists wanted only to demonstrate, quite appropriately and thus militantly, as a court was set to hand down its verdict on the world’s single-worst attack on journalists.
And so while the court told the country and the world that the police has failed to capture and arrest dozens of other suspects in the Ampatuan massacre, the PNP willingly chose to mistreat demonstrating journalists and to steal their mural. It speaks volumes about why the suspects weren’t captured. The police has been looking the other way.
The head of the “presidential task force on media security” largely ignored the incidents outside Camp Bagong Diwa, where the state security forces pushed and shoved and stole from the journalists and artists. He didn’t see anything bad in what the police did to the NUJP-led demonstrators. He has not lifted a finger or raised his voice to denounce the theft of the mural and the mistreatment of the demonstrators. Maybe the regime’s concept of “media security” is biased and could not apply to all journalists.
As the clerk of court read the dispositive portions of the 761-page decision, the nation and the demonstrating journalists erupted in joy as the scions of one of the most brutal political dynasties were found guilty beyond reasonable doubt as masterminds of the carnage.
It would take only a few minutes for joy of the nation and the demonstrating journalists to pause as the court acquitted scores of police officers who the masterminds ordered to pull the trigger close-range and in the victims’ genitalia and to preside over their “burial” by backhoe.
We are of course happy that the court convicted Zaldy and Andal Ampatuan Jr., along with the other principal accused. We are happy because the impossible became possible. They said it couldn’t be done, especially in this land ruled by political dynasties and national leaders who coddle them. The Ampatuans’ conviction is a signal achievement shared by Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes, the private prosecutors, and lawyers led by Nena Santos, the relatives of the victims, and the NUJP and other groups that held monthly commemorations so the profession and the public would never forget.
The mass acquittal of police officers, however, could be problematic because it could be interpreted as some form of reward or license for their unthinking obedience to illegal orders and to their participation in the carnage.
Never mind the Ampatuans. They can fend for themselves. They still have immense political and economic power, which they could use to file motions for reconsideration and to obtain special treatment whether in Camp Bagong Diwa or n Bilibid. They have ninongs, ninangs, allies, and benefactors among senators, congressmen, cabinet members, local executives, and their other fellow elite who are proud to be closely associated with them.
The same institution whose officers ordered the theft of the mural and the mistreatment of the journalists is intact and apparently remorseless. It is, on paper, an institution whose mandate is to protect civilians — like those who joined the motorcade that fateful day 10 years ago and also like those who were covering and demonstrating on that judgment day. But the police didn’t protect them. Instead, they participated in the massacre, and used excessive force, as well as confiscated a constitutionally-protected piece of political art, in the demonstration. There are still many other cases of murders of journalists waiting to be investigated and brought to court. Ditto for victims of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug addicts and pushers, and of suspected communists and communist sympathizers. The court missed a chance to correct the mindset of the police — that of defending the indefensible, enabling tyranny and impunity, and treating the critical thinkers, questioners, dissidents, and critics as enemies.
Because come to think of it, impunity reigns partly because the very institution supposedly stamping out crime themselves participate in crimes, views the exercise of rights as crimes, treats enemies of their patrons as their own enemies. On some days, they help perpetrate a massacre, on other days, they steal murals and harass demonstrators. It is thus not surprising that the real criminals rarely get what they deserve.