It’s AFP’s move

When justice grinds exceedingly slow, even victories can weigh on us like utter defeat. The May 31 decision of the Supreme Court ordering the military to release abducted University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno and farmer Manuel Merino comes two years and eight months after the Court of Appeals issued essentially the same order, and one month short of five full years since the abduction. To the victims’ kin, every day of delay was a lifetime; to the victims, if by chance they are still alive, every day must have been an eternity.

But a military spokesman was quick to deny that Cadapan, Empeno and Merino were in the military’s custody. Commodore Miguel Jose Rodriguez told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo: “We are in a bind, I guess you understand that we are in a bind… If they are not with us, how can we produce them?… The investigations [the Armed Forces conducted] revealed that they are not in our custody.”

This is an unfortunate reply and, like the jargon used (“produce” persons, as though they were goods), harks back to an unfortunate era when the military was both tool and symbol of a culture of impunity. Those “investigations” conducted during the incumbency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were all for show. We would like to think that that sordid era began coming to an end when soldiers both retired and still in active service started to surface to testify about corruption in the military.

Every soldier knows about the rot in the system, about the corruption that happens as one goes up the ranks, about the pyramidal scheme that produces multi-million-peso golden parachutes for retiring generals. It takes the active collaboration of officers and men who were previously involved in the corruption to stop the practice. That is what the example of George Rabusa means; the former budget officer is as tainted as they come, and yet there he is, exposing the inner workings of systemic corruption in the AFP.

But to completely free itself from the pernicious influence of the Arroyo years, the AFP must also come clean about its so-called special operations. Under a Malacañang policy that saw no distinction between the legal and the underground Left and countenanced the neutralization of militants and activists, the military conducted a dirty war through specialized units. It was, and remains, an open secret inside the armed services. The time has come to spell out the secret.

This is where the Supreme Court ruling comes in, and where Rodriguez comes up short. The ruling modifies the Court of Appeals decision in one particular way. “The Court finds that the appellate court erred when it did not specifically name the respondents that it found to be responsible for the abduction and continued detention of Sherlyn, Karen and Merino. For, from the records, it appears that the responsible and accountable individuals are Lt. Col. Anotado, Lt. Mirabelle, Gen. Palparan, Lt. Col. Boac, Arnel Enriquez and Donald Caigas. They should thus be made to comply with the Sept. 17, 2008 Decision of the appellate court to IMMEDIATELY RELEASE Sherlyn, Karen and Merino” (emphasis in the original).

Instead of putting on another display of acquired helplessness, the AFP can take the lead and launch a new investigation into the case, using the records that two appellate courts have already judged to be reliable. To its shame, the military has failed to give the records that identify these six men and what they did their due weight.

The Court also ruled that “Respondents Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, Lt. Francis Mirabelle Samson, Gen. Jovito Palparan, Lt. Col. Rogelio Boac, Arnel Enriquez and Donald Caigas shall remain personally impleaded in the petitions to answer for any responsibilities and/or accountabilities they may have incurred during their incumbencies.”

This is an opportunity for the Armed Forces to hold itself to its highest standards, and make those who abused the military’s traditions accountable for every single offense. But first, Rodriguez and his superiors must reconsider where it is exactly that the military’s best interests lie.