Friday, August 17, 2007 Malilong: What a shame By Frank Malilong The Other Side
HERE we go again. No sooner has the government stepped up its military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu and Basilan than come politicians and so-called peace advocates asking for a ceasefire. Whose interests are these people working for?
We have seen this same scenario before. Every time the enemy is cornered like rats, the same old faces appear demanding that the military withdraw its forces in the interest of peace. Well, add a notable new face: that of Sen. Mar Roxas, an otherwise decent person but whose obsession to become president has somehow clouded his judgment.
Peace? Do you really achieve peace in allowing a ruthless band of ruffians to escape a dragnet that has closed in on them so that they could regroup and rob, kidnap and murder again? Can there be peace without justice?
Let’s not even talk about justice for the slain soldiers. To quote the father of a young lieutenant who died in a three-hour gunfight with the Abu Sayyaf, death is an inevitable part of soldiery.
Let’s talk about the missionaries who have been kidnapped; the women who have been kidnapped and, presumably raped; and the teachers and innocent civilians who have been murdered. How can you tell them that their tormentors should be allowed to go scot-free in the interest of peace?
And while getting killed is a risk that is inevitable to a police or military man, desecration is not. What then are you going to tell the widows and the orphans of the soldiers who have been mercilessly beheaded? That they forgive the maniacs who, after decapitating their loved ones, committed the ultimate act of depravity by contacting them through their husband’s phones to brag about what they had done?
“Deep inside me,” confessed the young lieutenant’s father, “is an immeasurable grief because I just lost a son in battle.”
To people like Roxas, Nene Pimentel and the so-called peace advocates, however, that immeasurable grief doesn’t count a thing for as long as they can earn their pogi points.
What a crying shame.
***
The last couple of weeks has seen a flurry of news reports of the Commission on Audit (COA) finding this and that irregularity in the use of public money and resources. Finally, the COA has justified its reason for being.
The common complaint among those whom the COA damned in its reports, however, is that it did not get their side during the audit.
Former Talisay City Attorney Paterno Belcina, for example, says that had the auditors bothered to check they would have found out that Rep. Eduardo Gullas had nothing to do with the computerization program that the COA questioned. The records show, according to Belcina, that Gullas had no hand, whatsoever, in any stage of the project.
As for the slaughterhouse, Belcina said that all “the gadgets were complete” on inspection and that in fact the facility earned P1 million a year during Gullas’ term as mayor. And on the landscaping of the Talisay City Hall, he said that it is now a sight to behold because of the project that again was implemented when Gullas was no longer mayor.
Gullas himself said that while he does not want to act like a Pontius Pilate, “the truth has to be told.”
