MANY people would think that soldiers, those men and women of war, are gung-ho about the art of killing fellow human beings. After all, that’s expected of them.
Well, how about this? “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
Or this? “The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
A quote from peaceniks Mahatma Gandhi, that paragon of active non-violence? Pacifist rock star John Lennon who wrote in his song Imagine: “Nothing to kill or die for…Imagine all the people sharing all the world. You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.”
Nope. The quotes came not from pacifist but from well-known generals who have led their soldiers to war to kill their country’s enemies. The first came from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as the Supreme Allied Commander, led the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe in D-Day during World War II.
And the second came from Douglas MacArthur, the commanding general of the US Army during the Pacific War in World War II.
Now in Negros Occidental we have two other warriors who knew what it was like to kill fellow human being, no less fellow Filipinos. I salute Congressmen Stephen Paduano, a former commander of the Alex Boncayao Brigade-Revolutionary Proletarian Army, and Gary Alejano, a former marine captain of the Magdalo group. Both voted No to the death penalty bill.
They had their share of killing. Now they have moved to the other side and joined Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton in defending life.
Aside from these two warriors, Negrense Representatives Juliet Ferrer and Jocelyn Sy-Limkaichong made a stand against death penalty by voting No on House Bill Number 4727, allowing judges to punish convicts of certain drug-related crimes with either life imprisonment or death by hanging, firing squad, or lethal injection.
Sadly, Negros Occidental Representative Albee Benítez voted “Yes” together with Representatives Greg Gasataya, Melecio Yap Jr., Leo Rafael Cueva, Alejandro Mirasol, Mercedes Álvarez, and Oriental congressmen Manuel Sagarbarria and Arnulfo Teves Jr. Civilians, none of them experienced a shooting war.
To those who voted Aye to killing, allow me to quote Sis Kimee Santiago posted on her Facebook wall: “How did your YES feel, Greg Gasataya, Mercedes Álvarez, Albee Benítez?
In a firing squad, what’s more strategic and crime-deterrent, aimed at the head or the heart? What noose material do you prefer for the hanging, the wringing of necks? How will the executioners be trained and what should their core competencies be? Will the drugs for the lethal injection be fair trade? What do fine statesmen like you recommend? May we ask you to witness your YES in the execution chambers?”
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(bqsanc@yahoo.com)