By: Ben Contreras
Power is indeed intoxicating like alcohol and addictive like drug. He who lust for power will throw away legality and morality to attain it.
But lust of power is not a one-man job. It is a concerted effort aided by those who have similar lust for power. With power comes money and with money comes more power. A hen and egg riddle if we may say.
Digong is now in the hands of ICC, tried not because he was convicted in our own land but because he was delivered by those who want to stay in power. Digong is a victim of politics, of power play, of treachery and betrayal and people’s lack of genuine nationalism and patriotism.
The incident has become food for thought for lawyers and legal experts but complicated for non-lawyers. In the end, people will judge it the way how one should react when it happens to him or her, like, how a person reacts when his or her loved ones are threatened with possible death.
ICC is itself lack moral ascendancy to perform what it is expected to do. Many international organizations are. They are tools of great powers to meddle, intimidate, control sovereign nations.
When you are accused of Crime against humanity, you must have done crimes that are of equal magnitude to Hitler which is unfortunately being done by the once victims of such heinous crime. But ICC can’t do otherwise because its master told them so. “Arrest them and I will attack your country”, said one superpower.
Digong, based on the allegation, is responsible for the death of 30 thousand individuals under EJK or Extra Judicial Killing, an allegation peddled incessantly by his enemies.
A challenge to our mainstream media. Compile all your news clippings of victims of EJK. If it reaches 30K, I will join you.
During the pandemic, the United States kept on saying that America suffered more than 500 thousand affliction and death, a line said and lasted for months, a figure that seemed to have not changed at all.
The similarity in style of reportage indicates something that could be far from truth but being peddled as truth. Yet, we have seen death of innocent people of different ages and in greater number than that being accused of Digong, but the world seems silent except those who are the direct victims.
“He who controls media, control public opinion”. This has been said many times in the past and still is at present. The United States has been demonizing China through paid and controlled media. Our very own mainstream media is likewise demonizing Digong more than he deserves. And those who hate Digong have kept their silence on this. They choose to criticize and point out Digong’s sins but silent on what this administration is going. That’s politics, right? Wait till it affects you and your loved ones.
Once upon a time, I looked up to Digong as our nations savior. I and my good friend Dave Agudo started this free Tshirt printing even before Digong agreed to run for president. Many more followed and it spread like wildfire. The rest is history.
Why Digong? At a time when corruption and anomalies in the government seem growing and almost with impunity from one administration to another, people were looking and searching for a savior. Digong, as mayor of Davao, seemed to have projected himself as the likely Knight in shining armor. This desire and clamor had been made clear when people, ordinary people, lined up the streets and highway from Balingoan to Iligan to show their support, to take a glimpse of the man who would be their hope and savior for a good government.
But I have my own disappointment though. He failed in curtailing corruption as expected because some of his own people were into it also. Corruption is imbedded deep in our system. He admitted that in his speech when he said, “I did not realize that our problem is this big”, he said.
But corruption is not Digong’s waterloo. It cannot be. The worst of corruption is taking place today and under this administration. This administration corrupts not only politicians who lust for money and power but also corrupts the minds of our legal experts and the institution they represent. This administration also corrupts the mind of our men and women in the uniform.
We are now at the crossroad of choosing side, as if everything is all about the Marcoses and the Dutertes. The situation is pitting Filipinos against Filipinos. It won’t spare families against families. Friendship will be broken, enemies becoming friends and friends becoming enemies.
Let us all look beyond these people and focus on Filipinos as a nation. What do we want? If we don’t know and still continue to not know, we are doomed.
Corruption with impunity, abuse of power, missing fund and the silence of those who knew the truth will make us all lesser humans.
I was supposed to deliver a closing remark. And this could have been my parting words.
“When we go back to our respective homes and find an object blocking our main door, we do not tell that object to move aside. It won’t. We have to do it ourselves.”
Mabuhay ang Pilipino!
Mabuhay ang Pilipinas.
