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THERE'S THE RUB BY CONRADO DE QUIROS
THE MARCOSES have no reason to apologize, say Imee and Bongbong Marcos. They have never been found to be guilty of wrongdoing. "It's easy for me to say
sorry," says Imee in particular, now a congressional representative, "but up to now nothing has been proven that we need to apologize for."
The two have been saying this in the wake of Erap's efforts to strike a deal with them over the loot they stashed in Switzerland and elsewhere. Some congressmen have
suggested that the Marcoses be left with 2 percent. The Marcoses want more.
Well, if I recall right, Imee took a law course at UP, but dropped out when it proved too difficult for her despite the battery of lawyers waiting upon her hand and
foot. And when one teacher in particular, Haydee Yorac, refused to be cooperative, or cowed by the military aides who followed her around on campus. She quit when
she realized that she not only wasn't going to get the grades that would preserve the myth of the Marcos brilliance--as much a myth as his heroism during the
War--but that she might even flunk. A most embarrassing, and politically unsettling, pass.
But though Imee might never have become the lawyer her father was, she has clearly inherited his fetish for legal technicality. Anything that can be put legally must
be legal, anything that can be put legally must be just, anything that can be put legally must be right. The courts never found the Marcoses guilty of robbery and
aggravated assault, therefore they must be innocent.
Wrong.
The fact that the courts never found the Marcoses guilty of any crime is not a testament to their innocence, it is a testament only to the stupidity and venality of
the courts. It is a testament to the stupidity and venality of the Supreme Court justices who overturned a verdict of the lower court finding Imelda Marcos guilty of
scraggly greed, looting even the Philippine General Hospital to lease land to the LRT for a song. It is a testament to the stupidity and venality of Aniano Desierto who
proposes to throw all the cases against the Marcoses and their cronies to kingdom come.
But in fact, it is not true at all that no court has found the Marcoses guilty of any crime. It is not true at all that no court has found reason for the Marcoses to
bury their faces in shame forever. The court of Judge Manuel Real in Honolulu has found Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos guilty as hell and ordered them, or their estate,
to indemnify the 10,000 people they tortured and killed in the course of their insane rule. As Romy Capulong and Robert Swift have said, interviewing the victims across
the country has been a mentally and emotionally draining experience. It is almost unthinkable how anyone could be capable of such depths of cruelty and viciousness.
Those depths of cruelty and viciousness did not originate from the Marcoses' hatchet men, they originated from Ferdinand and Imelda--and indeed later their
children--themselves. Real was insistent on the point. The torture was too widespread and systematic to have been the product of individual initiative. It was
official policy. It might have been emblazoned on the presidential seal itself: Death to all critics, death to all protesters, death to all enemies of Ferdinand and
Imelda Marcos.
Which brings us to something even more important. It is not true at all that no court has found the Marcoses guilty of any crime. It is not true at all that no court
has found reason for the Marcoses to hang their heads in shame, preferably literally. One court has. A court higher than the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan and all
the other legal bodies God and Corazon Aquino created to try to make life after Marcos the opposite of what it was under Marcos. A court higher than the local RTC's and
even the district court of a judge named Manuel Real, a man determined to do his bit for his conscience and for humanity. A court higher even than the Supreme Court,
which has shown itself supreme only in ways other than wisdom.
That is the people themselves.
Vox populi, vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. That is true not only in elections, where the phrase is invariably invoked, often in defense of the
most shameless wrongdoing. It is true as well in social upheavals. It is true as well in revolutions. It is true as well in people rising like a flood to sweep a
tyranny off their path.
That was what the people did at Edsa. That was the whole of martial law balled up into one instant of time. The people convoked a court, with their experiences
standing as prosecutor, with their capacity for mercy standing as counsel, and with their conscience standing as judge. They listened to the litany of crimes against
the Marcoses, to the torture and mayhem they wreaked, to the rape and pillage they wrought. And they passed judgment.
Guilty as charged.
What more proof do you want? What more proof do you need?
Which brings us lastly to what Erap and his cohorts are doing striking a deal with the Marcoses. But of course Ronaldo Zamora can afford to be magnanimous and say the
Marcoses deserve more than 2 percent. You can always be magnanimous if you never thought the loot belonged to the people in the first place. You can always be
magnanimous if you do not think the loot should go back to the people in the second place. Which has always been the case with the effort to recover the wealth since
Cory's time. It has never been an effort to recover the ill-gotten wealth for the people. It has always been an effort to steal from the thieves.
But do we ourselves need any more proof about the double standards in government? Do we ourselves need any more proof that in this country there is one kind of law
and justice for the poor and another for the rich? Just look at the pitilessness with which Erap and his cohorts have shown toward a house painter found guilty of
rape by an imperfect court. And look at the magnanimity they show toward a tyrant and his cohorts found guilty of rape and murder by the most perfect of human
courts--the people themselves.
Of course some may say that Bongbong has been punished enough for taking after his mother. But not everyone may agree with that.
Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 29, 1999
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