Looking back to the deplorable incident at the UCCP Haran Mission House, the facts point to Rep. Nancy Catamco, the DSWD, the Military and the Police, including the paramilitary group Alamara, as the prima facie guilty parties.
As to the prime instigator or progenitrix of the crime, Nancy Catamco seems to be at the top of the responsible entities. But there’s also evidence that the DSWD was in close coordination with her in cooking up the so called “rescue” operation.
Notably, however, the “false rescue” operation failed, because in the first place, it was illegal. The woman legislator who arrogated unto herself the authority of commanding the PNP was totally out of legal bounds. She could not have exercised executive function, and much more, she did not coordinate with the local government unit (LGU).
Davao City is out of her jurisdiction. And that’s why she was chided by Vice-Mayor Paolo Duterte who intervened in the fracas initiated by the Police and the paramilitary group Alamara. Mayor Rodrigo Duterte also gave her some “lecture points”, to say it very mildly, in his Sunday TV program “Gikan sa Masa para sa Masa”.
Secondly, it was immoral. It grew out of a self-serving whim to earn “pogi points” for Catamco herself in the pretext that she is very much concerned for the plight of the Lumad evacuees who, she claimed, were illegally detained at the Haran Mission compound. These pogi points, if the false rescue succeeded, could have been shared with the DSWD and the PNP. but worst of all, it could have thrown the Lumad evacuees back to their villages to the mercy of the beastly AFP soldiers and the senseless Alamara.
But God was on the side of the Lumad evacuees and the Church and other support groups. The biblical allusion of the HARAN goes back to the time of Abraham who was commanded by God to bring his people to Canaan to flee from the persecution of the idolators in Chaldees. But Abraham did not proceed to Canaan, he and his family and people settled in HARAN. It was told that the evil pursuers were able to slay a number of slaves from the camp of Abraham .
The parallelism is kind of providential, and it should strike like a lightning bolt at the consciences of Catamco, the DSWD, and the PNP.
It is noteworthy that the Lumad evacuees at Haran Mission House prevailed. They were on the side of truth and reason, and they were determined to safeguard their rights. Their barricade displayed formidable unity. Arm-linked with Church people, NGO staff, and youth activists, the flagrant malicious attempts of Nancy Catamco, the PNP and Alamara miserably failed.
Widespread denunciations and condemnations soon proliferated in the different mass media outlets and entities, including the social media and even in the metropolitan press. They came from a wide spectrum of concerned entities and sectors, citizens, religious congregations and Lumad peoples across Mindanao and the archipelago, not to mention international groups who declared their support for the Haran refugees.
Now the DSWD and the local Police Organization are buck passing the responsibility for the botched “rescue” operation. The DSWD blames the PNP as the initiator of the affray, and the PNP points back to the DSWD as the instigator. And some officers of the local PNP have dared to air various diabolic tactics to thwart the adverse public opinion against them. One falsehood after another has been invented to malign the progressive forces, including the Church organizations and individuals who have secured, accommodated, cared for and defended the Lumad evacuees in the Haran sanctuary since their arrival in the city.
There’s no doubt that this propaganda assaults by the Police is again part of Rep. Nancy Catamco’s despicable wily schemes for all the bad publicity she has earned on account of her unbecoming and ill-advised moves and actuations vis-à-vis the Lumad evacuees in Haran. Of course, the Police would be more than willing to collaborate with Catamco, in all her planned moves to exult herself before Malacanang. Surely, she must have bribed the police to come to her aid and participate in the aborted “rescue” at Haran.
We can only surmise that likewise the DSWD would only be too glad to finance her “rescue project.” And heaven knows how much she has been able to extract from the DSWD coffers for this project she has cooked up for her own selfish advantage and likewise for the advantage of the DSWD and ultimately Malacanang, if it succeeded. She is bent on earning “pogi points” that would be pleasing to the eyes of President Noynoy, and expect favors for her self-serving deeds.
It is well to remember that DSWD has a prime interest in this Catamco “rescue” project, because the DSWD Secretary herself would like to profit from it for her own image building. As a matter of fact, Secretary Soliman is said to have allegedly monitored closely the developments of the “rescue” operations. Every now and then she would call the local DSWD office to ask if the evacuees had already been taken out of Haran.
Perhaps, Catamco’s latest initiatives are also a form of gratitude to Pres. Noynoy for protecting her from the plunder cases she has been involved with. It is a well-known fact that she is linked with Janet Napoles in the PDAF scam. As to why she had been dropped from the charge sheet could be on account of her extraordinary relationships with the powers-that-be. This woman, being used to scandals, has grown extremely callous in getting involved in shameful flagrant activities to the extent of selling her reputation just to gain headway in her political career.
The local Police has to its disreputable name and record countless cases of “pangongotong” and “pandarambong” and other unlawful activities. In fact, just a few days ago, they were chided by Mayor Rody Duterte for some serious breach of conduct by police personnel in their involvement in leaking crucial information to target drug pushers in a big anti-drug operation.
The Police—it must be stressed— is shorn of any moral ascendancy to spin scam tales against the nationalist Bayan-Southern Mindanao Region and other progressive groups and individuals. If there is any organization whose name and reputation have been so thickly smeared with so much malignant anomalies and bizarre crimes against society and the people, it is the police! Its ideology is founded on motives of self-aggrandizement and it thrives on the culture of violence in order to advance its nefarious activities.
The rank and file in the police organization are however victims of the malformed culture of the system which gives high premium to selfish interests and motives. This warped culture is a reflection of the ruling class ideology which is premised on exploitation and oppression. The police officers who are the direct instruments for the flourish of this classist ideology certainly deserve the most vehement public censure and condemnation. They are veritable robots of the ruling elite.
President Noynoy Aquino bears the ultimate responsibility in promoting the ideology and culture that subject the masses of the people to the tentacles of fascist State violence to maintain itself. Hypocrisy and deception constitute the ingredients for the sugar-coating of the bullet from the barrel of the guns in Malacanang.
To the Lumads, Nancy Catamco is not only a traitor to her origins, she has allowed herself to be the carrier of the virus for the extinction of the Lumad culture and tradition. There is nothing Lumad in her looks, in her name, in her outlook, in her motives and interests. She is worse than what Franz Fanon said of the Blacks who have shunned their indigenous world outlook—“Blacks on the outside, White on the inside”.
Nancy Catamco is neither Lumad on the outside nor Lumad on even just an iota of thread on her brain. She is a total cultural wreck! God have mercy on her!
