Duterte, UP and the right to be ‘bastos’

SINGAPORE—We must be shocked that University of the Philippines freshman Stephen Villena received death threats last week after asking a question on education in a UP Los Baños forum with presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte. Why are we instead debating whether he was bastos (rude)?

Villena asked whether Duterte would need to reduce the education budget to fund firearms for policemen, two of his stated priorities. Villena interrupted Duterte’s anecdote and asked him to answer directly, until Duterte simply reiterated that his budgetary priorities are education then agriculture and health.

As the video went viral, many criticized Villena’s perceived rudeness. A former UPLB professor wrote an open letter, addressing him as “utoy.” Villena deactivated his Facebook account after receiving anonymous calls and a photo of his tombstone spread.

We must echo the UP student’s disgust and terror for two key reasons. First, the right to free speech includes the right to be bastos.

In 2014, President Aquino was severely criticized (including in this space) for roughly ejecting an Ateneo de Naga student who heckled his Independence Day speech. Many shared a clip of US President Barack Obama being heckled, but smiling and reminding the crowd of the freedom of speech.

Duterte gave a perfect response: “I may not agree with what you said or say, but I will defend your right to say it.” We keep forgetting this basic point, even as we parrot “Je suis Charlie.” And beware the bastos and mayabang cards ending debates with youth using hierarchy, not ideas.

Villena was mild for UP. Recall how protesters at a 2014 UP Diliman Economics forum assaulted Budget Secretary Butch Abad. Leftists praised this, decrying a “rotten culture of bureaucrat capitalism.”

Second, beyond bastos, we must be morally bankrupt if our students are threatened and cyberbullied for speaking in a university, holy ground for free speech.

The right to free speech comes with being responsible for the consequences. Others have an equal right to condemn Villena’s speech, whether they believe he was bastos or—as petty trolls did—they highlight his grammatical errors. The right to react, however, is not license to turn a university into a hostile environment and undermine the deeper freedom for the exchange of ideas that defines it.

It is triply offensive that Villena was threatened over questions regarding the national education budget, in a UP campus. UP embraces a tradition of fierce academic freedom. In his biography, former UP president Edgardo Angara proudly recalls asking soldiers to be removed from UP during martial law. And funding education has always been a passionate topic for UP student leaders. Alumni must be indignant at how cyberbullies diminish what not even martial law could.

We are numb to how rights are casually trampled upon. Also last week, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. president Lorenzo Tan and antimoney laundering head lawyer Laurinda Rogero appeared in a Senate hearing on the $81 million in funds stolen in the United States and sent to an RCBC account.

Like any self-respecting bank officer, they refused to answer questions regarding specific accounts, given our strict bank secrecy laws and their criminal penalties. If one listened closely, they only answered questions unrelated to any specific account. For example, they confirmed businessman William Go was not in CCTV footage from the RCBC branch.

Bank secrecy is so strict that not even the Senate as impeachment court could set it aside. The Supreme Court sent a restraining order to prevent it from examining former chief justice Renato Corona’s accounts.

Yet on live TV, some senators ridiculed these bank officers for textbook invocations of bank secrecy, insinuating they were hiding evidence. Some senators incorrectly argued bank secrecy does not apply simply because they claimed the accounts were opened using fake identification. They also argued that Bangladesh, the owner of the stolen funds, waived bank secrecy, but Bangladesh does not own the Philippine bank account. Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile even protested that a Senate investigation is not a prosecution.

Appearing before the US Congress, “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli repeatedly invoked his right against self-incrimination, refusing to answer questions while taunting with his facial expressions. Shkreli is reviled for buying the rights to AIDS drug Daraprim and raising its price by 5,456 percent to $750. Nevertheless, US congressmen visibly respected the right against self-incrimination and merely pleaded that Shkreli help save lives.

Far from reviled, Tan is one of our most admired bankers and SME (small and medium enterprises) champions. He served as Bankers Association of the Philippines president and Asian Bankers Association chair. He is a The Outstanding Young Men awardee and TOYM Foundation vice chair.

It must be made unacceptable for bank officers to be treated like criminals on TV for honoring their most basic legal duty. What if a senator asks about your accounts next, without a court order, or summons you?

Returning to Villena, it must be an article of faith that no student should ever feel afraid to ask a question in our universities, even bastos ones. More broadly, we must underscore that to protect another’s rights is to protect one’s own.

Recall the quote at Washington, DC’s Holocaust Museum: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

*** React: oscarfranklin.tan@yahoo.com.ph, Twitter @oscarfbtan, facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan.