Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Malilong: Amnesty By Frank Malilong The Other Side
WHAT, another amnesty?
House Speaker Jose de Venecia says it is necessary “so that we can unify the nation.” After having placated his foes in Congress with his wheeling-dealing, Compromise Joe now obviously feels ever more confident that he can carry his talent to a bigger stage.
Amnesty, says a United States case, is an act of the sovereign power granting oblivion or a general pardon for a past offense. It looks backward and obliterates the offense so that a person released by amnesty is deemed to have not committed any offense at all.
In 1948, President Manuel Roxas granted amnesty to all those who collaborated with the enemy during the Second World War. Later, that same year, President Elpidio Quirino extended amnesty to members of the Hukbalahap and the Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid. In 1995, Congress declared a general amnesty to members of the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabayan (RAM) and other insurgents.
The last one, also passed by a Congress under de Venecia’s watch, made it possible for Gringo Honasan, then the face of the RAM, if not of a mutinous military, to become senator and for Joma Sison to walk out of jail free.
It did not, however, achieve national unity. It certainly did not prevent younger military officers from pursuing the trail of adventurism blazed by elder mistahs. Neither did it result in Joma asking the New People’s Army (NPA) cadre to abandon the armed struggle.
So what makes de Venecia think the 2007 version will be more effective than the one in 1995? “This is,” he crows, “a wide-ranging, all-encompassing amnesty to cover all insurgents and all those who have committed political crimes against the state.”
Aha, political crimes. Amnesty, explains our Supreme Court, is granted to classes of persons or communities who may be guilty of political offenses. Is plunder, then, a political offense?
De Venecia obviously thinks so. Otherwise, how could he have proposed that the benefit of his legislated amnesty also be extended to former president Erap Estrada?
Erap is being charged for allegedly helping himself to public money. If that is a political offense, is it possible not to include in the same category the murder of a political rival? Under de Venecia’s distorted definition, shouldn’t crimes committed by politicians and all those that are done to advance a political interest belong to the class of political offenses?
If releasing Erap is in fact the only point of the whole exercise, de Venecia should level with us and stop clowning around.
