Malacanang announced on Friday that it is extending the period for Martial Law human rights victims to file their compensation claims as provided by RA10368 from the November 10, 2014 to May this year. The reason given for the extension is purportedly to afford the broadest possible opportunity for HR victims during the regime of the Marcos dictatorship to have their share of the Claims money now in the coffers of the Philippine government.
Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., half-smilingly said, ”the extension will give all legitimate claimants, especially in far flung areas of the country a full opportunity to file their claims with the Human Rights Victims Claims Board (HRVCB), providing them access to a means of gaining redress for the sufferings and sacrifices that they endured during Martial Law.”
Wow! What heartwarming words that any unsuspecting mind would readily welcome as a very good gesture of the regime of President Noynoy Aquino! It sounds like an act of a magnanimous government that sincerely upholds the human rights and dignity of its citizenry. One would be prompted to cheerily say, “Oh, here is a government that really stands true to its commitment to tread the matuwid na daan!”
But! What a splendidly woven fabric of doublespeak! Malacanang has the gall to blow its hypocritical whistle in the wind when the incumbent regime of Noynoy Aquino through its armed forces is blatantly violating the human rights of poor citizens in the “far flung areas” of the country!
When Secretary Coloma says HRV in far flung areas, does he refer to the Lumads (indigenous peoples) and other rural people now suffering from human rights abuses by the Military of this very government of President Noynoy Aquino? He must be confused between the Marcos dictatorship and the Noynoy Aquino regime? Oh well, he has every reason to be confused. The soldiers of Aquino are no different from the soldiers during the Martial Law regime—torturing, kidnapping, raping and killing Lumads and settlers in the countryside.
But in fairness to President Noynoy—No, the President has never been confused in his life as chief executive of this country. All proofs in incontrovertible facts point to his expertise in lies and doublespeak. Since the very first time he spoke in public, he has always issued well-fabricated stuffs of doublespeak. What do you think of his “matuwid na daan”—a forthright policy statement secreted by his salivary glands? Yes, all those sweet-sounding words that he spits out every time he makes a public statement are juices from his under-the-tongue fountain of lies and doublespeak.
And so for every attribution of wrongdoing and charlatan acts Noynoy points to his predecessors — Marcos and or Gloria Arroyo — three fingers point back to himself. It is in fact hard to determine who has the greater weight of guilt as far as human rights violations is concerned—that of the previous governments or his very own government. The HR violations record of the incumbent regime is a daily occurrence, not unlike what was happening during the Martial Law period. But, Noynoy‘s art of doublespeak is paralleled artfully by a double-face system of deception—its classic manifestation is his Oplan Bayanihan program.
Noynoy Aquino’s Oplan Bayanih an is a façade of good intentions to hide a cadaver of evil acts conducted by the Military. It is a mask tailored as a peace and development initiative, and behind the mask is a skull with cross bone that represents a reign of terror waged by the Military in areas where big mining companies are operating in the ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples. Militarization of the countryside spells the same campaign of terror obtaining during Marcos martial rule.
As of this writing, mass evacuations are taking place in various places in Mindanao—Lumad peoples from far flung areas, such as Talaingod and rural populace from mountain areas in Agusan del Sur—have fled their homes to escape from atrocities of the Military. And these armed minions of the government are in these far flung areas to serve as security guards of the big mining corporations favored by Noynoy ’s government to extract the mineral resources of the Lumads’ ancestral domain.
But the doublespeak character of Noynoy has not been limited to deception in his policy of governance in the countryside. It manifests just as wonderfully dressed as a showtime act in the halls of Congress. Here all the back-up players of his allies orchestrate to exculpate him of all wrongdoings and accountabilities for all his violations of the Constitution.
Even the brandishing of “all-out-offensive” (a mere synonym of all-out-war) against supposed terrorists is considered a program of peace-building—a kind of peace-building that spews gun smoke from barrels of gun and cannons,displaces thousands of civilians from their homes, destroys croplands and livelihoods, traumatizes children and disenfranchises them from their educational rights, disorients the totality of the affected peoples’ life world. And heaven knows for how long this is going to last!
Surely, when this all-out-war is over, misery and injustice will remain infinitely in the country! And Noynoy’s government and military will be replaced by an exact identical clone of a government system that perpetuates a cycle of the same forms of injustice and misery suffered today by the great majority of the people.
Doublespeak, if you haven’t witnessed yet its display of wonder, is a spring beneath the glib tongue of President Noynoy that every now and then spurts out saccharine juices of misery and death.
