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The Philippines Star’s Jarius Bondoc got his facts
wrong on the sexual prowess of the unnamed Comelec official in the
ZTE mess, if he had alluded to Chairman Ben Abalos, 73, who
disclaims such gift. Some septuagenarians say they can do it twice,
once in the dry season, and the other in the rainy season. But do
Chinese hosts provide wonder drugs?
One real wonder is what it would
take for Ben to resign after having a secure place in history as the
worst chief the Comelec has ever had.
Going abroad and playing golf
during the run-up to the recent May elections at alien expense were
incredibly ill-advised. Garci, son-in-law, brod, computers—whew.
Another wonder was that the week
GMA said we had a quarter growth rate of 7.5 percent was the week
the help told us that from P1,300 for a sack of rice, it is now
P1,450, or an increase of more than 10 percent. (In 1988, our rate
was 7.7 percent, unmatched to date, but then a coup came, and good
night, baby.)
GMA’s formula continues to
work: oppress the miserable Pinoy and make him go abroad from where
he can remit his earnings in a world without frats.
Senators Johnny Ponce Enrile and
Miriam Defensor Santiago are not namby-pamby types who would find it
easy to feel revolted, as it were.
I am more glad than I can say
that they are sending the message that UP does. Not stand for
“Useless People,” which is bad enough. From time to time though,
UP, which my wife, three kids, a sister, a brother, two hipags, one
bayaw et al., attended, seems to stand for “Uncivilized People,”
“Barbarians,” with a “Killing Field.”
We laud the UP-dominated Supreme
Court for having a summit meeting on extrajudicial killings. But
justice should begin at home. Whatever rule the Court may frame to
abate “salvaging” should include not only the abuses of the AFP,
but also the frats’ unabated excursions into torture and
extrajudicial killings.
A “habeas data” writ,
designed to seek out information, would be nice to inflict on Sigma
Rho. But, from all indications, on top of the token denunciations,
we have in UP a Mafia franchise, whose code is omerta, while some of
its youngest and brightest students come out as omelets in the
hazing rites.
If nothing happens to the latest
initiative of Senator Miriam in the Senate, we can confirm that the
frats have hastened the movement of our society from savagery to
decay with but a fleeting tryst with civilization.
The Neo-Barbarians.
In the fifties Fr. Delaney
visited us in Rizal High. Even then, he denounced hazing. Up to now,
they have not learned a thing in UP, which at times seems like a
little Sicily or Pugad Baboy.
The martyrdom of Cris Anthony
Mendez is a watershed.
If nothing happens here, forget
Amparo, habeas data, whatever. If the Supreme Court cannot stop
extrajudicial killings in UP, where may it succeed?
Early this week, Senator Miriam
formally filed a resolution calling for an inquiry into the death of
Chris. If it weren’t hazing, why, people, led by civic-spirited
Sigma Rhoans and their kin, would have spoken out by now.
She said the probe’s findings
would be used to strengthen the Antihazing Law, which she critiqued
as useless in preventing hazing deaths. She also said that she would
push for a world without frats and sororities.
Manong Johnny, a member of the
Sigma Rho, believed to be involved in the hazing death, said: “My
fraternity is becoming a trainer of thugs and killers. A fraternity
is a fraternity of people who embrace the law instead of violating
it.”
Last August 27 the victim was
rushed to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC), where he was
declared dead on arrival. He reportedly had bruises all over his
body, particularly on the back of the arms and thighs.
Black and blue indeed.
According to the guard on duty at
the VMMC, Cris was brought to the medical facility by a doctor
aboard a white Toyota Innova with license plate ZXB-393, followed by
two other vehicles: a Nissan (WGL-515) and an Isuzu (XAS-548). After
providing the hospital with Cris’s personal data, the group
hurriedly hightailed it. The killers and witnesses all seem to have
become desaparecidos.
With all these leads, what are
the authorities able to come up with so far? They are slow when
dealing with campus syndicates addicted to power, perks and pelf.
You don’t mess with those who can help in budget and promotion
concerns.
For now, it looks like it’s
blowing in the wind.
We should have the moral stamina
to stop torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings,
beginning in UP. Can we ban frats? But, it may not be illegal to
look for leaks in bar exams and become powerful, wealthy influence
peddlers and kunsintidores.
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