WHILE administration mouthpieces go about the business of condemning the Maguindanao massacre and vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice, it’s the small details that at times escape the public eye that throw a different light on how the government is dealing with the problem.

Remember the Peninsula Hotel siege in November 2007 when Sen. Antonio Trillanes and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim marched from their hearings in a Makati court to the Peninsula? When the siege ended with an armored personnel carrier forcing its way through the hotel lobby, many newsmen and other individuals were herded into a bus with their wrists tied with rope or plastic strips used for prisoners. One memorable picture from this incident was that of men raising their bound hands up in the air so that people could see what they were going through. No one was killed or injured but for some reason, they were considered dangerous to the community at large and had to be tied up like criminals.

Remember Paco Larrañaga, the Spanish killer-rapist who recently was flown out of the country under the provisions of a treaty specially designed for him by the administration? The “Treaty of Sentenced Persons between the Republic of the Philippines and the Kingdom of Spain” was ostensibly fashioned to allow Spanish and Filipino convicts to serve their sentences in their home country. Larrañaga was convicted of homicide and rape by the Supreme Court. His victims were the two sisters Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong, who were abducted and repeatedly raped by gang members. Incidentally, almost two months after Larrañaga’s return to Spain, we haven’t heard of any Filipino convict being repatriated to the Philippines. Larrañaga could turn out to be the only beneficiary of this treaty.

But the point I wish to make is when Larrañaga was brought to the airport and handed over to Spanish agents, he was not handcuffed and neither did we insist that he be handcuffed during the flight to Spain even though considering his background he posed a potential danger to fellow passengers. As I mentioned in an earlier column, when FBI agents picked up Mark Jimenez for trial in the United States, he was handcuffed to his seat all the way to a Florida jail.

In Korea, accused individuals including business tycoons, and even former presidents, are handcuffed not because there is a possibility of flight but because the spectacle serves as a highly visible and powerful symbol of a justice system that makes no distinction between friend or foe, rich or poor, the weak or the powerful.

The alleged mastermind of the Maguindanao massacre is now detained at the NBI detention center. During a Malacañang press conference, one reporter noted that he was never handcuffed by the authorities although pictures of him behind bars appeared after international and nationwide outrage and condemnation over the massacre broke out.

Let me repeat what I said earlier. It’s the small details that provide a more accurate and vivid picture of how an administration handles a particular problem. For perceived enemies of the State, it is straight to Bicutan with handcuffs or bound wrists; for friends of the administration, kid gloves with a polite invitation coursed through emissaries to please surrender.

Just in case the reader is interested, in the May 2004 presidential elections the province of Maguindanao gave Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo some 194,000 votes as against almost 60,000 for Fernando Poe Jr. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) headed by the Ampatuans also delivered similar results. In the 2007 senatorial elections, Maguindanao delivered a shutout in favor of “Team Unity” of the Lakas administration party. The score was 12-0 with Gov. Chavit Singson topping the list and Rep. Miguel Zubiri placing number 12. Political scientists say this is statistically improbable. Manny Pacquiao was once quoted as saying, “Hindi ako bobo!” Many of us would also like to use his words, “Hindi kami bobo.”

That’s not all. On a nationwide basis the party-list system got only 35 percent of the vote but in Maguindanao it was 99 percent. Some party-list candidates who rode on this wave of manufactured votes now occupy seats in Congress.

This early, the system is already getting a bad reputation.

The delivery of command votes for the Arroyo administration in the two previous elections resulted in total control of the province for the Ampatuan clan, a by-product of benign neglect from an administration grateful for the fantastic showing at the polls. The all-important security forces virtually became a private army of the ruling family. In this environment, a culture of impunity, one which brooked no opposition, took hold. The massacre was only a matter of time. President Arroyo cannot escape responsibility for the tragedy considering the well-known coddling of warlords by her administration. The Maguindanao massacre will remain part of her legacy.

What a pity! After the glorious victory of Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas and Efren Peñaflorida’s winning the CNN “Hero of the Year” Award, the world was treated to the spectacle of Filipino barbarians murdering innocent men and women pulling down the nation to the same level as Darfur, Rwanda and Srebrenica.

While watching the CNN Hero program and feeling so good and proud about Peñaflorida’s victory and his simple but moving speech of acceptance, I was jolted back to reality when CNN announced an update on the Philippine massacre. The clip that followed showed the killing fields of Maguindanao being dug up by heavy equipment with bodies scattered all over the place.

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In the early 1950s, Moises Padilla was an aspiring mayoral candidate in Negros Occidental. He was tortured and killed by henchmen of the ruling party. It was Secretary of National Defense Ramon Magsaysay, in a famous picture, who was shown carrying the body of Padilla whose brutal killing became one of the major issues in the presidential contest that followed. The campaign would highlight the arrogance of political warlords. Magsaysay would score an overwhelming victory over the entrenched administration machinery of President Elpidio Quirino. The town of Magallon was renamed Moises Padilla to honor one of the martyrs of that period.

In 1983 it would be the assassination of Ninoy Aquino that would turn the people against the Marcos regime.

The coming 2010 elections will be greatly influenced by the massacre in Maguindanao. Some people may say that we tend to have short memories. Not always. There are certain incidents that remain in the back of our minds and are easily brought up just when people think we have forgotten them. As in the 1950s and 1980s, the Maguindanao massacre sounds the death knell for the current dispensation.