Wednesday, December 06, 2006 Nilles: Victory of the people By Giovanni A. Nilles Open Sentence
FINALLY, one American serviceman got convicted in the Philippine courts for abusing a Filipina. Nicole should be saluted for her unending and unswerving quest for justice even when honor may no longer be restored to her after a victorious court battle. Her character and her person must be real strong for her to stand up to the pressures of the American representatives and their Philippine contacts.
Twice in the past, when I was still a reporter covering the justice beat, I have seen how the cases filed against a number of visiting American soldiers get washed down with a few hundred dollars that were either rammed into the throat of those they abused and their kin or some other promise that would make their bitter Filipino lives better.
Take, for instance, the case of a taxi driver in Cebu City who was beaten black and blue by several drunk GIs who thought he was overcharging them for a trip downtown. Whether the driver was overcharging or not, there was no need to maul him.
Then there was that case when American and Philippine soldiers conducted a joint military exercise inside an abandoned mines field in Toledo City.
Those doing the exercises left in a hurry near the end of the day and failed to make the necessary clean-up operation, supposedly a standard procedure after every exercise, and left behind several live bombs and a number of spent bomb shells.
The nearest village was inhabited by poor farming families. And so, kids raced their way to the exercise site to scout for metal junks that could be sold per kilo and allow them to buy a few kilos of rice and, perhaps, a box of candy for a bonus.
They tinkered with the rounded pieces of metal and transform it into whatever it is that would make it saleable. But off the bombs went.
After the blast, two teeners were immediately dead on the ground. Another could not walk and has to be brought to the government hospital in the city. For whatever reasons, those who died were buried the next day.
Philippine officials came in a hurry. The men in black, actually the men who wear the black Visiting Forces Agreement coat, also went and quickly settled things. The almighty dollar can sure shut a lot of mouths.
For one, I had a not-so-glorious experience of chasing my news sources around their community, which cannot be entirely described as a walk in the park. 'Twas an hour's ride from the city, another 30 minutes by habal-habal and two hours to climb the mountain that would lead to that village.
There is no need for me to tell how my sweat dripped all over upon reaching the community only to see the primary source, the boy who was injured, raced down the mountain to avoid an interview.
It appeared that they were given the instruction to shut their mouth up or jeopardize the remaining few hundreds of dollars promised them. That is where Nicole made a difference. Indeed, her victory is a victory that many Filipinos
have dreamed of.
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