The 24th ‘wang’
This column welcomes you to mayhem, into the center of the marching mad. A terrorist suspect’s tortured face headlines national television, while a half-dozen mothers mourn the flag-wrapped coffins of their decapitated sons. The administration offers clemency to a man four days after he dies of lung cancer, while the government calls his death “a supervening event” and the delay a failure in communications.
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The General
I was a soldier, not by choice but by circumstances. My father was a soldier. I really wanted to be a lawyer. When I was in Leyte, it was the lawyers who became politicians. Maybe at that time I already have a liking for leadership, because I appreciated this one powerful politician. He was campaigning in our barrio, and he had followers, and he was in charge, and people listened to him. So as a young, very young boy, Grade 1, Grade 2, I admired him. People listened to him.
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Salvage
Under the bridge in E. Rodriguez Avenue, by the side of the river, a woman named Girly Bonza stands guard. Her legs are knee-deep in murky water. The home she watches is a tent propped on stilts. She is seven months pregnant, and she is worried about losing her bed. When the waters rise, so does her home.
Girly is a single mother to four boys and a baby girl. The children are in school, and they are good boys, smart boys. She has had three husbands, and knows that the child will be the last – she has learned not to look for love.
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The Law of Sara Duterte
It could have been Asiong Salonga swaggering into the slums; hair gelled and fists ready, providing the opening sequence for the presidency of a man named Joseph Estrada. It could have been Bong Revilla, Alyas Pogi, belly sucked in, bandanna wrapped around his head, half-naked women clinging to his pudgy arms. It could have been any one of them—Fernando Poe Jr., Robin Padilla, Lito Lapid riding in as Leon Guerrero. Roll the music, signal the extras, let the heroine scream, let the villain laugh. Enter the hero.
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The Red commander
The Abduction
The story begins in July of 2006, in a remote hamlet in the town of Hagonoy, Bulacan.
“Four armed men passed us holding Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan. Ate Sherlyn was screaming and begging for help while they were being brought out of the alley.”
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Jonas Burgos, 41
Edita Burgos is going to court. There is a ruffle of white lace at her throat. The cap of dark hair is the same, the black jacket and fading slacks the same. She sits quietly, smiling and nodding at the newcomers who come to offer their support. She has the complaint in a folder, along with a cover letter addressed to the prosecutor general.
“It is therefore with a ray of hope that I am herewith filing my Affidavit Complaint,” reads her letter, “for the violation of Article 124 of the Revised Penal Code (Arbitrary Detention) or possibly murder, in the enforced disappearance of my son.”
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Deliver us from evil
Next to the unhappy wives of the Republic of Malta, population 410,000, only one other country can claim to be affected by the results of last month’s non-binding referendum on divorce. Malta’s contentious approval of the legalization of divorce leaves Catholic Philippines the only nation in the world without the right to freely divorce – with the exception of the Vatican.
Malta may be cause for celebration for the progressives, whose champions lost no time pushing House Bill 1799 to the House committee on revisions, but it is also a reason to give thanks to the Lord God, at least according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
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