B.S. Aquino is no man of peace.
He is hallucinating to ever think he will leave a legacy of peace. For what he will leave behind him is a legacy of human rights violations just as vicious as the ones committed by those in power before him. His insensitivity to the plight of the disadvantaged and marginalized and his utter ignorance of the root cause of restiveness of the poor – the absence of land for the tillers, jobs and decent wage for the workers, home for the homeless, food for the hungry – make him a man for himself and his ilk.
B.S. Aquino is no man of peace.
He is hallucinating to ever think he will leave a legacy of peace. For what he will leave behind him is a legacy of human rights violations just as vicious as the ones committed by those in power before him. His insensitivity to the plight of the disadvantaged and marginalized and his utter ignorance of the root cause of restiveness of the poor – the absence of land for the tillers, jobs and decent wage for the workers, home for the homeless, food for the hungry – make him a man for himself and his ilk.
B.S. Aquino is no man of peace. He is into escalating and prolonging conflict in the country with:
1. His deceptive Oplan Bayanihan patterned after the US Counter Insurgency Guide and desperately meant to dissipate the people’s resistance and armed struggle so that the US-Aquino regime would be scotfree to plunder the country’s resources and exploit its people;
2. The militarization of the countryside, including bombings and air strikes, that caused the forced evacuation of numerous peasants and indigenous peoples (Caraga region, Southern Tagalog, Talaingod in Davao del Norte, the Cordilleras, Samar, Juban in Sorsogon);
3. His continued use of State security forces and paramilitary groups that protect multinational mining corporations and harass and kill environment and anti-large scale mining activists (Capion massacre, extrajudicial killing of Jimmy Liguyon.William Bugatti);
4. His criminalization of political offense; the increasing number of political prisoners, including human rights defenders, charged with fabricated common crimes, languishing for years in jails, awaiting the exceedingly slow spin of the wheel of justice;
5. His highhandness and insincerity in the conduct of peace negotiations and utter disrespect for previously concluded agreements, such the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees or JASIG (15 detained NDFP consultants; 13 disappeared NDFP consultants and staff).
6. His perpetuation of the culture of impunity through cuddling of military officials and men charged with cases of human rights violations, even promoting them to positions of higher rank (Philippine Army Colonel MedardoGeslani implicated in the Maguindanao massacre, Gen. Eduardo Año, charged with the abduction of activist Jonas Burgos; generals Aurelio Baladad and Jorge Segovia charged for the torture and illegal detention Morong 43; and, Gen. Ricardo Visaya, ground commander during the 2004 Hacienda Luisita massacre);
7. His attempt to sabotage the law on recognition and reparation of the victims of Martial Law by designating as Head of a Claims Board a military general, who used to be with the defunct Philippine Constabulary during the martial rule, and making the claims process difficult for the victims;
8. His debacle in the face of disasters and the ineptness, if not neglect, and corruption that characterize the subsequent relief and rehab operations and resulted to the death of a leader of the protesters, Cristina Jose (Typhoons Pablo and Yolanda)
9. His centerpiece economic program of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that caused the forced eviction and displacement of urban poor from their communities to give way to government projects and resulted to the assassination of urban poor leaders – Antonio Homo of Navotas, Ernesto Gulfo of Malabon and Malou Valle of Tondo (San Roque, Silverio Compound, Corazon de Jesus, Freedom Island, etc.);
B.S. Aquino is no man of peace. His legacy, as of March 2014: 192 victims of extrajudicial killing, 202 victims of frustrated extrajudicial killing, 21 of enforced disappearance, 94 of torture, 640 of illegal arrest and detention, 14,445 of demolition, 39,688 of forced evacuation, 65,103 of threat/harassment/intimidation, and the figures are counting to the end of his term.
Ignoring the root cause of unrest and toying with meaningless development statistics to deceive will never quell dissent but will only infuriate people. Trampling on people’s rights and perpetuating injustice and impunity will indeed fuel rebellion. All actuations of BS Aquino dishonor the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the initial agenda in an effort to end the armed struggle and attain just and lasting peace. His militaristic option to remedy the situation reveals the frame of his mind. B.S. Aquino is no man of peace. He sows deceit, treachery and terror. ###