Awake in the interregnum

When the Arroyo regime first became an ally of the United States government’s “war on terrorism” and “terrorist” bombings in the country started to occur, only progressive groups had enough acumen and daring to float it.  That the U.S., Philippine government and military could be complicit in raising a bogey was initially treated by the public as mere speculation almost insulting to their worry and shock at novel images of such carnage. 

When Antonio Trillanes and the rest of the Oakwood mutineers in 2003 blurted out a state secret that made their insides coil—that the military ordered the bombings in the Davao airport, Sassa Wharf, and mosques in Mindanao—speculation grew heavy with the tinge of truth. By then, the military had blundered and been implicated in collusion in its operations against the Abu Sayyaf. By then, the “terrorist” crackdown had victimized thousands of innocent Muslims nationwide.

Yesterday, Glorietta was bombed, leaving 10 dead and more than a hundred wounded. Once more, Trillanes spoke up. He called it a repeat of Oplan Greenbase, the government’s pretext “to justify repressive actions against the people to clamp down on peaceful protests and subdue the rising public clamor for her to resign” and “to divert public attention away from the controversies hounding GMA.” By now, the rebel soldier has a more legitimate mandate as a senator than Arroyo has as a President. By now, the regime has shown itself to be capable of far more worse things, such that the idea that it must have orchestrated this latest ”terrorist” attack has lodged itself into the minds of many Filipinos. It has, finally, graduated from airy speculation to firm belief.

(The Philippine Daily Inquirer, in its banner story the next day, didn’t even bother to attribute the speculation before quoting Norberto Gonzales’ ironic “What kind of minds are these?” In journalism, this either means they deliberately left out Trillanes’ statement or recognized it as a widely accepted notion.)

The timing, after all, is not just suspect, it is outrageously so. The past few weeks the regime has been displaying unparalleled shamelessness through acts of unparalleled shamefulness. There are few images more repulsive than bundles of money in paper bags or brown envelopes being distributed inside the Palace to congressmen and local government officials. As it is when you are caught with your pants down, no explanation, deadpan or red-faced, will conceal the truth: that the whole lot of them was bribed get rid of an impeachment complaint against Arroyo resting on an anomalous $329M National Broadband Network deal. That the whole lot of them conspired to preserve in power someone who has cheated, lied, plundered, broke the Constitution, sold our sovereignty, and lest anyone forget, killed more than 800 civilians and is reponsible for the disappearance of almost 200. It provokes anger, propels action, and inspires change. Bishops have started the “Resign Gloria” refrain. 

Indeed, there are few images more repulsive than the one evoked by this latest political scandal on the brink of snowball; a “terrorist” bombing in a highly popular place in the Metro is one of them. It creates confusion, breeds immobilization, and compels people to rally behind the authorities. Or at least that’s what it used to do.  Although perhaps unarticulated as such, many Filipinos now believe in the “state terrorism” that progressive groups and Trillanes have been decrying for ages. It is not just the use of military-exclusive C4 in the Glorietta bombing that has been so crude, after all. 

It is no longer accurate to say that they are simply a team
out on a search
seemingly,
and often truthfully,
interminable.

Sharing desaparecido, the name of loved ones,
common are they in tears—
sparkling,
trickling,
gushing forth—
to finally evaporate-solidify in
a fury immortal as justice.

Common are they in hope as a shadow heartbeat.

And they troop
to streets camps courts fields,
like hounds sniffing out a trail left by fascists,
careless or careful in obeying
the state machinery’s most carefree of deadly missions.
Let it be known that it is not the nature
of a mother
brother
son sister
father
to be attracted to the smell
of blood on cement, wire, or gun-butts.
This morbid endurance
to chase after traces of
stale cigarette smoke and engine exhaust,
sweat on abandoned plastics and blindfolds,
ashes of incinerated flesh,
rotting bodies in mud graves shallow
and other horrors
evocative
of that smile, that voice, that imprint of a soul,
is a symptom of something gone terribly wrong.

So they shake placard faces in faces.
The former is a fixed expression of an absence so deep
it burrowed back in time
and nestled right at the heart
of the continuing struggle:
between
oppression and self-might
between
ignorance and possession
between
capitulation and dying
between
reaction and liberation.

It is no longer accurate to say that they are simply a search team
that holds hands
and lights a candle
for the nation’s disappeared.

They, too, have found their memory.

***

Desaparecidos under the Arroyo regime (as of October 9, 2007): 184