The chief difference

The passing of former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III has led us to think about how things have changed between administrations. Without undue praise or condemnation, I wanted to reflect on one incident that illustrated with stark clarity what the differences have spelt for me and my loved ones.

Last year, a friend of mine (let’s call him SG) shared a screenshot of the infamous tweet by a schoolteacher who had posted that he would offer a reward to whoever could slay the president. SG was not expressing agreement with the poster’s sentiments but was merely sharing, without commentary, the post that had gone viral on Facebook. Of course, like many, SG had also previously shared several posts critical of the government on his friends-only pages, including laments about government spending and about the shutdown of ABS-CBN.

A few days later, he received a distressing call from a cousin. This cousin said that he had been rung by an unidentified number. The anonymous caller asked if they knew my friend, mentioning SG’s social media handle. The cousin, startled, admitted he did. The call was dropped.

That call, which was seconds long, was the start of a months-long nightmare for my friend. From the news, we already knew of people who had made posts critical of the government and who had then been subpoenaed, but we also knew that there were those who had just been picked up from their homes—no subpoena, no official charges or charges invented. We knew this from Twitter and from friends who worked in law. Some stories had a common pattern. Victims would receive calls from unidentified numbers, asking them to identify themselves and telling them to take down their social media posts. Some would then be picked up at their homes. Some said that drugs were planted during the pick-ups. Many were captured late on Fridays, delaying inquests and prolonging detention. Some were abused physically. Some were intimidated into invented confessions. Some never came home. Some made it home on bail. The latter were too scared to post anything on social media afterwards. The stories rarely made it to the news. Stories differed, but one conclusion was clear: My friend was right to be afraid.

During this time, I often pondered the phrase: If you didn’t do anything wrong, then you have nothing to be scared of. I don’t know if that has ever been true of the Philippines and its criminal justice system, but it’s nothing short of fantastical these days. Think of people who started community pantries and who were Red-tagged, of innocent bystanders killed. The reality is, you can do everything right, and still have everything to be afraid of.

We panicked. We tried to get hold of a lawyer, which was hard in quarantine. We contemplated buying CCTV cameras in case a pick-up was ever attempted, though I recalled Dave Chappelle saying about police body cams: “What’s the use of video evidence if y’all don’t care?” SG thought of going into hiding but, while in lockdown, he would have risked getting flagged at a checkpoint. A lawyer advised us to lie low and deactivate social media. My friend did not leave the house. We were scared for a long time, wondering if we were overreacting, but also knowing we had reason to fear. SG had little money and no connections. This is something that those victims had in common—that they would be, in others’ eyes, inconsequential.

In the end, the feared pick-up never came. In 2021, my friend is alive, still cooped up at home. He has revived his social media accounts but we keep telling him to be careful. If the unknown voice who made the call wanted us to be intimidated, it had worked. I wanted to write about this at the time, but feared that it would paint on all of us even bigger targets.

Thinking of what I took for granted in the last administration and regret about the current one, I can only write that chief difference in my personal experience is that before 2016, neither my loved ones nor I feared voicing legitimate criticism against our leaders. There are those who, like myself, are cautious with praise of the former president for fear of invalidating the experiences of those harmed by decisions made by that administration. It is the lot of those who knew President Aquino personally, not mine, to speak about his work ethic, his principles, and his hopes for the nation. My personal hope is that, whoever will be president next, we may again live in a Philippines where our rights to freedom of speech are respected, among our other rights. Where we do not fear getting captured in the once-protected grounds of the University of the Philippines campuses for demonstrations, and do not fear the anonymous phone call that heralds a capture.

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