The Philippine Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday that the $658 million in ill-gotten Marcos wealth belonged to the government was a victory for all the victims of the Marcos regime. I’m sure there were tears of joy and whoops of exhilaration when the decision was announced.
It’s been a long road ever since the People Power revolt of 1986 when the late dictator President Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown by hundreds of thousands of people massing on EDSA in Manila. Selda, the group of human rights victims during the Marcos regime, has estimated that each of the estimated 140,000 victims would receive 70,000 pesos each from the 10-billion-peso package that the Philippine government wants to set-up from the $658 million now in a Philippine National Bank escrow account.
The only obstacle to victims getting a payout is the fact that former President Corazon Aquino signed a law during her presidency that stipulated that any recovered Marcos loot could be used only to fund the agrarian reform program and nothing else. Already the House of Representatives and the Senate are rushing bills through that would amend that law, allowing for the 10-billion-peso compensation package for the victims. It should be noted that these bills had been languishing in Congress because of a lack of support from the Arroyo administration and well-orchestrated opposition from the “Ilocano bloc” led by Illocos Norte Rep. Imee Marcos, the daughter of the late dictator.
But it seems that Congress will now be able to get its act together, and victims will be able to get their rather small but hugely symbolic payments from the Marcos loot that was tracked down to secret Swiss bank accounts by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).
Admittedly, this payout will be made from only a fraction of the estimated five billion dollars that the Marcoses looted from the country during their 20 years in power. But it is an important step in the long road to national reconciliation and healing that the Philippine nation must continue on.
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Frustrated by the Drug Menace
One of my readers, an OFW working in Saudi Arabia for the past seven years, sent me a long email this week to tell me how much he despaired about the growing drug problem back home and the rising criminality that comes with it.
My July 4, 2003, column in which I called the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption’s proposal to poison all seized illegal drugs “wacky,” is what prompted him to write me. He asked that I don’t use his real name, so let’s call him Carlos.
“Lately, things that are happening in our place have been more and more bothering me to the point that I’m quite at a loss whether I’ll still consider going back there or just take my family with me and migrate somewhere else. To another country where I believe everything will be more practical, convenient and safe for all of us,” wrote Carlos.
“One of the issues that’s being addressed with conviction, but often only in front of the cameras, is the menace of drugs, which of late has reached a worrying level, one that wouldn’t even spare our younger generation.... Time and again, efforts by our authorities to control this problem would reach an impressive level, most noticeably when elections are just around the corner, and then expectedly relax afterwards.... Seriously determined and committed individuals, who will not bat an eyelash in punishing and even terminating extrajudicially proven offenders, are being branded human rights violators.”
Carlos goes on to say that this is pathetic and unfathomably disappointing. He also says that he disagrees with my assessment that poisoning seized drugs is wacky, saying that repeat drug pushers should be executed.
I must disagree with him. First of all, I don’t subscribe to this widespread idea in the Philippines that the salvaging of criminal elements is a correct way to deal with a criminal justice system that is seen to give criminals too many chances of escaping serious punishment for capital crimes. Police executing known criminals on the streets so that they won’t have a chance at getting a fair trial is to my mind wrong and just a form of vigilante justice. Who’s to say who should get salvaged and who should not? Aren’t many of these same policemen, who are supposed to uphold the law, corrupt themselves?
The real problem is that money from narcotics has corrupted many in the political and judicial sectors, making the enforcement of tough anti-drug laws a joke. If a corrupt politician asks an equally corrupt judge to go easy on a suspect, what can the most draconian anti-drug laws in the world do about that? Exactly, nothing!
In the war against illegal drugs I think a multi-pronged approach must be taken: Against the big drug lords, catching only the small drug pushers does nothing to stop the menace; against corrupt politicians, naming and shaming them publicly might stop people from re-electing them to public office; against corrupt judges and law enforcement officers, and finally a compassionate look at what leads drug users to use drugs in the first place is needed. High levels of poverty and unemployment lead many to use shabu to ease their boredom and frustrations.
Drugs have become a menace in all countries, even here in Saudi, so leaving the Philippines is perhaps just a stopgap measure for Carlos and his family, one that wouldn’t be a real solution in the long run. I just wish that Filipinos like Carlos would be committed to returning to the Philippines and improving the country for themselves and future generations. Running away from your problems is not always the wisest solution.
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Comments of questions? Email the author at: [email protected].
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Visit the author’s website at www.manilamoods.com.
