Three years on the lam and yet the strong arm of the law seems to have clamped down on Jovito Palparan in a soft, swaddling embrace. How do they love thee? Let us count the ways: free and unlimited access to media, no handcuffs, inordinate delayed transfer to ordinary jail despite court order, care and attention to his whim and taste. After the initial shock and awe, watch the familiar swagger and the glib.
Actions indeed, speak louder than words. For while law enforcers exclaim that justice must be served, and fair treatment is for all, and as ordinary accused are hastily and summarily brought to their jail cells whether unfed or unkempt, we have Palparan and the powerful and the influential who shy not from the privilege of infamy.
What’s wrong with this picture? Who’s the victim, who’s the villain? Who is protecting whom?
Remember the dead and the disappeared, the raped and terrorized, the tortured and tormented, the forced suicides, the bodies burned alive. Defenseless all.
We beg you to let Nanay Linda and Connie and the families of 71 killed and 57 missing understand.
Including our very own, lawyer Juvi Magsino of Mindoro and lawyer Fedelito Dacut of Tacloban. One continuously peppered with bullets while driving, the other shot at pointblank range while riding a jeep after stepping out from a trade union meeting so that he could posthaste buy milk for his 3-year-old daughter.
Seethe.
If all’s well that ends well, tell us then. Have we not in our hands a butcher of the ruling class and unjust status quo, an infinite and endless liar who sees reality upside down, an hourly promise-breaker?
And yet essentially a most pretentious coward by constitution?
—EDRE U. OLALIA,
secretary general,
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers