The savage state of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
His name is Rei-Mon Guran; he was a left-wing student leader at Aquinas University. His friends called him Ambo. On his 21st birthday, his parents took him to a bus terminal where they watched him load his bags for school. He was still in the back of the bus when they found him, with four bullets from a .45 cal. pistol lodged in his head.
His name is Raymond Manalo, and he was a farmer. The armed men took him on Valentine’s Day. He was also 21. They said he was a communist. They beat him with chains and planks; poured his own piss down his nose, stuffed him into a four-by-one foot cell with three other men. When he escaped, he talked about the man in the next cell, who lost his mind and hanged himself with the garter from his underwear.
His name is Jonas Burgos, and his father was a hero. He was disappeared at three in the afternoon of April 28, 2007. His mother traced the license plate of the getaway vehicle to the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion headquarters. Every year, Jonas’ sister greets him over the radio on his birthday. His mother is still looking for him, she says this government will not break her family.
Her name is Cecille Lechonsito, and she was home for the holidays from working in the Middle East. She had daughters she had not seen for two years, and a husband she was accompanying to a hospital for a check-up. They were driving a red Toyota Vios. Two days later, the car was found buried in the foothills of a small town called Ampatuan.
His name is Nestor Bedolido, and he was a reporter for a weekly paper in Davao del Sur. He was buying cigarettes at a street corner when a man shot him, walked to a nearby motorcycle, and rode away. Bedolido was rushed to a hospital, but he was dead on arrival.
His name is Suwaid Upham, and he said he was a murderer. He asked to be called “Jesse” when news channel Al Jazeera first interviewed him, when private prosecutor Harry Roque announced he had a new witness to the massacre whose 57 victims included Cecille Lechonsito. The man called Jesse was shot dead in Parang, Maguindanao last June 14.
Upham was the first witness to admit participation in the massacre. He named six others, including Datu Unsay Andal Ampatuan Jr., the pudgy man who laughed in court while prosecutors rolled video of the massacre’s aftermath. Upham said he feared for his life because the Ampatuans had been killing off all possible witnesses, and because he had heard the orders for his execution. When he ran, it was with the hope he could offer his testimony and be included in the Department of Justice witness protection program.
On the first of March, Upham was flown to Manila by Roque and his associates, three days earlier than planned at the behest of the DOJ. The meeting with a DOJ high official was set for 3 p.m., and was to be held at the office of Commission on Human Rights Chair Leila de Lima.
According to Romel Bagares of CenterLaw Philippines, who had been arranging the meetings, the DOJ official cancelled. He said he had an emergency. According to Assistant Chief State Prosecutor Richard Fadullon, it was Roque’s group who changed the venue and schedule. A second meeting was arranged, Bagares admitted to changing the time, because Jesse suddenly had to be moved to another safehouse. The DOJ demanded that the meeting be held in their offices.
It was Upham who refused to be interviewed at the DOJ premises. He believed that there were members of the department who had been abetting the Ampatuans.
According to staff of the Witness Protection Program, Jesse “has been saying that DOJ officials were in cahoots with the Ampatuans, so why then would the WPP offer to take him in? There was lack of faith on his part, that’s all. He should have sought protection from other authorities that he believed he could count on.”
According to CenterLaw Philippines, the DOJ refused to discuss a second meeting. Upham left Roque’s protection for Maguindanao, after saying he was unhappy with the DOJ. He said he felt he would be safer there. He was wrong.
Acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra, the man who had initially absolved two of the principal accused in the case and later revised his resolution after a storm of public outrage, is fighting a pitched battle for blame against Roque.
“I am taking this personally. I’m piqued because he is attacking the department,” said Agra.
It is true that it is difficult to comprehend what logic Harry Roque and his people were using to allow a man they believed to be a valuable witness under threat of his life to return to the Ampatuans’ Maguindanao, a witness that Roque himself pushed to the national media and made a possible target. Roque says that they were running out of resources, that they had assurances from Upham’s relatives that he would be safe, that they had no mandate to keep Upham against his will. It is also difficult to comprehend why Roque and his people failed to inform Human Rights Watch, or the Commission on Human Rights, or any other body that could have stood in the way of Upham’s homecoming and inevitable murder.
“In the case of Jesse,” Agra says, “he was never under our program. Who is at fault? Mr. Harry Roque. I am taking this personally,” says Agra.
What is clear is this: that the Department of Justice failed, brutally and thoroughly, in its mandate to dispense justice and protect those who seek it. That Upham refused to meet at the DOJ should not have been cause to stop protection negotiations; neither should the imagined or real arrogance of one Mr. Harry Roque. That Jesse refused to be interviewed at the DOJ should not have stopped Agra from pursuing an interview—especially since that lack of faith is an indictment of an institution whose failure to bring to justice the murderers of at least 30 media men has been criticized by the United Nations. In spite of his lack of faith in the DOJ, Upham was willing to meet.
According to Human Rights Watch, Agra had been told at a meeting to look into the possible protection of Upham. HRW said they had corroborated many of the man’s claims; they said the man was seeking protection. In that meeting, Agra said he had never heard of Upham, and committed to looking into it. Upham is dead now—because the official tasked to protect him allowed his men and his personal whims to get in the way of the pursuit of justice. That Upham was a possible witness, that he was begging for aid, that he was, in fact, in danger of his life, should have been enough for the justice secretary to stir out of his office. Now Upham is dead, because his killers were not afraid of the hand of justice.
This is the result of nine years of the rule of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a state where murderers are permitted to build armies for the price of loyalty, young film critics are murdered in their own kitchens, while the man meant to deliver justice sits at his desk and informs the media that he is “extremely happy” with the work he has done.
In three days, Benigno Aquino III will become the president of the Republic of the Philippines. Commission on Human Rights Chairman Leila de Lima will take over the Department of Justice.
His name is Suwaid Upham, and he said he was a murderer. This is written in the hope that when De Lima wrests justice from Agra, Jesse will be a name that she will not forget.
