Letters from Davao: A Lenten season that marred the Philippines

A CERTAIN Victoria T. Corpuz, referred to as special rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and described as expert on human rights of indigenous peoples got herself busy denouncing in European forums the Duterte administration for tagging her, so she claimed, a terrorist. Not until she herself revealed that she is involved with leftist organizations identified with the CPP/NPA that she became famous or ….infamous.

But never mind her. Lest we all forget, it was not Pres. Rodrigo Duterte who tagged CPP/NPA a terrorist organization. European Union and the United States of America had long identified the communist insurgents and those that support the communist rebels in the Philippines as terrorists.

Duterte promised peace and fulfilled this. He allowed all sectors from varied political persuasions to participate in his government. He was derided for this but he delivered on his promises anyway. Among the first items in his agenda when he sat as President was to allocate sensitive cabinet positions to the CPP/NPA and resumed peace negotiations with the insurgents. I do not know whether Ms. Victoria told her UNCHR bosses and forum audience about this.

I do not know too whether, as rapporteur, she bared before the UNCHR body that many rebel leaders cannot actually live in peace. Never mind that at one time the NPAS staged an ambush on the Presidential Security Guards maybe thinking that President Duterte was with PSG. (Duterte had a scheduled event in Bukidnon). Just about the same time the NPAS staged another ambush in Bukidnon against a police patrol succeeding in killing a police officer and an infant and critically wounding those civilians who was with the baby in a separate vehicle that was on the same route as the police patrol. Victoria forgot all these.

Duterte cancelled the peace talks after that but I knew and am sure Victoria was aware that the President still sent Peace Adviser Jess Dureza in countless attempts to win a peace accord. All failed. It became apparent that Joma Sison wants to have more of the Republic of the Philippines a demand which Duterte refused to grant.

Even before the decibels of her fiery speech ebbs denouncing the Duterte regime as authoritarian and out to hunt and slaughter critics including children, the New Peoples Army waged another broad daylight attack on construction firm that was building a bypass highway in Davao City – the President’s turf. If this is not touting the government this must simply be extortion. The NPAS exacted these dastardly acts and ignominies as punishment for what they claimed was the failure of their victims to pay revolutionary tax. These are simply criminal and should be addressed the way crime and criminals should be treated.

It is of strange coincidence that while Victoria was spewing lies in faraway Milan, back home the Catholic churches during the Lenten season had a common theme for their homilies: “atmosphere of violence in the homeland and soldiers driven to kill children in the governments campaign against drugs”. And yet, isn’t it a sublime irony that all the catholic churches were secured by police and military men to keep the faithful safe and secured.

Victoria T. Corpuz delivered her pugnacious speech in a human rights forum. I do not know whether UNCHR sent her there for the singular purpose of denouncing Duterte or she went on her own. Either way, she must have all the euros she needed to cast aspersions against their pet peeve Duterte whom they cannot find a single piece of evidence to pin him on their contrive issues of extra-judicial killings and the Davao Death Squads. Victoria and UNCHR may have succeeded in defaming Duterte but the damaged they did to the Philippines, the land of our birth, cannot escape condemnation. I am not sure whether indeed she is in the NPA terrorist list but it will not be surprising if she made it in roll. Too many insensitive characters used innocent indigenous peoples to prop their dubious agenda and state intelligence knew this.

In Davao City for example, those advancing human rights would busin IPS from distant provinces and then prod them to rally and demonstrate. They cry discordant slogans that have not been changed since the first quarter storm. What for? To raise funds. Why in Davao City? Because nobody is required to secure permit from the local government to air one’s grievances. This freedom was and still is guaranteed by the Duterte administration. Why Davao City? Because the city is the center not only of trade and commerce in Mindanao but also the communications center of the region. Here, demos and incendiary speeches are covered by the media. HRW NGOS love it. They can have droves of materials to attach to their project studies for donor foundations in Europe and Canada to consider for funding.

Ms. Corpuz must have left the Cordilleras long time ago and enjoyed the comforts of Europe just like CPP/NPA Chieftain Jose Ma. Sison, she has lost touch with the pulsating realities in the Philippines. While the NPAS stage ambuscades on soldiers and civilians, thousands have actually surrendered. While scores of drug lords and drug pushers were killed fighting to keep their syndicates and trade, over a million drug pushers and users have surrendered and underwent rehabilitation and thousands had been rehabilitated.

The economy grew under a healthy climate of investment and the administration has started contracting big ticket projects that include railways, roads and bridges, irrigation projects, airports upgrades, salary increases among teachers, soldiers and policemen and for farmers free irrigation water. The Philippines is no longer a subservient country and had been redeemed from being treated as vassals of overbearing powers. Victoria T. Corpuz is in the incurable state of denial. But she has to speak in the human rights forum in Europe because it is there where huge grants are derived by HRW non-government organizations are coming from. It is there where donor foundations, which are conduits of aid and grants from the EU countries, fork out money to beneficiary foundations like the HRW NGOS in the Philippines.

It is so depressing and annoying that Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle, who cannot even name his penchant in his Lenten message to the Catholic Christians, just like Victoria, conveniently forgot that the country they described as akin to a killing field where violence is the order of the day, has in fact been rated by international rating firms as a country with “stable economy and investment grade”.

My Tagle, my Tagle how can you be so myopic as to deny these developments and then, like Victoria, brazenly call our country in a state of violence and under a dictatorship. You freely march in the streets even without permits right? You rave and you rant and nobody gagged you. Correct? Now if you say that the voice of the people is the voice of God, think of the unprecedented approval and support that the man you are so angry at, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and then tell us whether we are a scared nation. No we are not. Only the criminal and the terrorists are.