Monstrosity

I too was shocked to learn Zaldy Ampatuan had managed to find a line to Malacañang to propose turning state witness against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and his father, Andal. An offer that doesn’t seem to have been spurned outright, indeed that might even have been greeted with sympathetic ears, to go by the way Ampatuan has been blasting away at Arroyo for cheating in the 2004 elections, with no small help from his father.

Harry Roque has been protesting it vehemently, and he has every reason to. I’d like to add my voice to his.

At the very least, why on earth do you need Zaldy Ampatuan to pin down Arroyo? That’s just laziness, that’s just goofing off. You want everything served on a silver platter? Even Salome had to dance for the head of John the Baptist.

If government lawyers on their own cannot build a case against Arroyo for corruption in all possible senses of the word, then they have no business being lawyers. They have no business being in government. They should just go home and, well, planting camote is still hard work.

What can Ampatuan add to the cheating in Mindanao in 2004 that we do not know already? A detail or two, maybe, but that is all. We already know about the cheating in Mindanao because retired Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and Col. Alexander Balutan told us about it. Or tried to, their testimony being cut short and they themselves being carted off to jail on the basis of a “law” Arroyo decreed after she was proclaimed winner in the dead of night that public officials, civilian and military, may not say anything against her without her permission.

If I recall right, Gudani and Balutan swore to having witnessed the actual cheating. A thing that resulted in Gudani being relieved of his duties and given an unwelcome R and R in the capital because he could not be trusted to keep the elections dirty. He could be trusted only to keep it clean, the last thing the First Couple wanted. What the hell do you need Zaldy Ampatuan for? You want proof of the cheating, just allow Gudani and Balutan to complete their testimony. Just give them their day in the sun. Just give them their due. Just give them their medals.

Far more than this, why should you want to have anything to do with one of the worst criminals on the planet? Why would you want to compromise in any size, shape, or form with the one creature that committed a crime that compels you to hark back to the days of Attila the Hun for comparison? Why would you want to give an inch, a foot, a mile to someone who is deathly scared of multos he can’t be left alone in a cell without a light but has absolutely no fear, or compunction, in sending scores of people into that state in the most agonizing way possible?

Are our memories so short we can no longer hear the screams of the women whose breasts he lopped off and whose sexual organs he sliced as he wreaked his mayhem in orgiastic frenzy? Are our memories so short we can no longer see the faces of those who, aghast and unbelieving that this could be happening to them, glimpsed their last upon this earth but who still pleaded for mercy in the hope, however remote, however desperate, that they could reach a hidden nook in the mind or body of this monster that still held a human spark, that could stay his hand, only to see that hope disappear as this monster personally presided over first their mutilation and thence their execution.

The notion that this entity can possibly get any leniency in the hands of those tasked to dispense retribution is anathema to the core. The notion that this criminal can possibly get some consideration in the hands of those tasked to give justice in exchange for any information he might provide, whether superficial or vital, is an outrage to the last. The notion that this living, or dead, reminder of the depths that human beings can sink to can possibly go free for whatever service he might render to the cause of bringing down a kindred zombie unhinges this earth from its moral orbit and sends it spinning into the sun.

Zaldy Ampatuan wants to confess, fine, but the truth may make him free only in the spiritual sense, however he is not a Christian. Not in the physical sense. Not in the bodily sense. Not in the sense where he might yet again torment the living, not least those who dared take the stand against him. That is unimaginable. That is inexcusable.

The P-Noy government exists because of one thing. That is justice. That is the sine qua non of its being, that is the foundation of its life. That was what the voters put it in power for. That is the underlying premise of its anti-corruption campaign, that is the guiding spirit of an anti-corruption agenda: justice. Essential, elemental, fundamental, justice. That was what drew it out of the void, that was what plucked it out of the blue: Its capacity to give justice. Pure, unadulterated, uncompromising justice.

What is the point of bringing down Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo if that is to be bought at the price of burying all memory of the dead along with their mutilated bodies, of forgetting the cries and lamentations their kin sent to heaven, begging it open to reveal the angel with the flaming sword? What is the point of tearing down Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo if that is to be bought at the price of tearing down the monument the kin of the dead built for their loved ones who went screaming in the night, or day, a monument raised brick by brick, mortar by mortar, with their blood and their tears, with their courage and resolve to see things through to the end? What is the point of burying Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with Zaldy Ampatuan’s hoe, only to allow him to go on and dig a hole for everything else that matters in this country?

That is not justice, that is a monstrosity.