Alvin Luque, the former Bayan secretary-general in Davao City who is being hounded by allegations that he was a member of the New People’s Army, fires off a scathing New Year letter to his chief tormentor, Col. Eduardo del Rosario, erstwhile commander of the Task Force Davao.
AN OPEN LETTER TO COL. E. DEL ROSARIO, FORMER HEAD OF TASK FORCE DAVAO
January 1, 2007
COL. EDUARDO DEL ROSARIO
Officer in Command (Former)
Task Force Davao
Davao City
Col. Del Rosario:
Military heads like you are desperate to win the war against “the enemies of the state,” desperate to make a mark in your military career worthy of a medal. For six years now since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo rose to power, the AFP and the PNP, despite the denial, use political killings to silence those critical of this government to win ‘the war.’ You fantasize that it would in turn achieve, by 2010, what the rehashed, but refurbished, Oplan Bantay Laya, a military campaign of genocidal proportions, set out to accomplish.
You gloat at your so-called victories which result from death-dealing, either by motorbike-riding assassins in urban areas on a shooting spree, or, military offensives against the common-folk in countless barrios in the countryside. The AFP is proud to display its thirst for blood by letting slip delusions of grandeur froth with much braggadoccio in such pronouncements as: “The enemy will be wiped-out by this deadline, and if not, we’ll just extend.” For the AFP, the slaughter of hundreds is never enough.
With more activist blood spilt on the pavement in every city, with more enforced disappearances, with more trumped-up charges leveled against activist leaders, you probably think you are winning the war. But, you are dead wrong. So wrong because the only thing that is obvious at this point is that you have monumentally failed, time and again.
The AFP’s Bantay Laya may have set perhaps the most elaborate and the most expensive military campaign to date, but this has not deterred the people’s will to rid the nation of a Marcos-like regime.
The AFP’s use of the Judiciary circuit to immobilize activist leaders has undermined the Courts. It has turned this institution into an apparatus to carry out the regime’s all-out war, a war that is devoid of any sense of justice.
By such means, activist leaders could be incarcerated (as in the case of Rep. Crispin Beltran), but, for how long do you think these jails could hold the rage of the people long oppressed by the government you defend? Despite its military machinery, remember that Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship did fall.
