Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jan 2005
Source: Mindanao Times (Philippines)
Copyright: 2005 Mindanao Times.
Contact:  http://www.mindanaotimes.com.ph/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2980
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

GOVERNMENT OF THE POWERFUL

LOOK how unfair our government is. On the other side of the fence is former 
President Joseph Estrada, ousted, arrested and detained because he 
allegedly stashed millions of pesos from the government coffers,

After several months living like a prince inside a primary hospital, 
Estrada petitioned the court to allow him to stay in his luxurious 
resthouse just fronting his detention cell. And the Sandigangbayan relented.

Not just that. Estrada then filed a petition before the Sangdigangbayan to 
allow him to go to HongKong so his hurting knee could be operated. His 
petition was granted.

Well-meaning citizens, among them the former leader of the Senate, Jovito 
Salonga, asked the national government to remove the perks granted to Estrada.

Some political pundits believe these perks were handed out to the former 
president because the Philippine government, or President Gloria 
Macapagal-Arroyo and her throng of advisers for that matter, feared that if 
the government imposes due process on the former president, he might use 
his clout to unseat her just like what she did to him.

On the other side of the fence are the victims of the so-called summary 
executions in the city. The other night,  another man fell, leaving behind 
five small children and a wife who could only tell his killers: "Come, feed 
my children."  Ruel Andia became another statistics of the growing list of 
victims who were executed because, if the investigators were to be 
believed, they were involved in illegal activities, never mind if there was 
no due process.

As if rubbing salt to the wound, Police Regional Director Simeon Dizon then 
made a pretext, the usual line of investigators in trying to extricate 
themselves from the controversy. Dizon, in a press conference yesterday, 
claimed that those behind the summary executions were groups involved in 
illegal drugs. They were trying to eliminate one another from the business, 
he said.

As if believing that his audience did really understand he was just making 
an alibi, Dizon claimed that his office received information that the 
killings would continue in the next two weeks. His last claim was another 
usual line of the authorities: that they could not track down the killers 
because no witness was willing enough to come out and tell everything he or 
she saw in these incidents.

Do you know how many more will die, General Dizon?

Is this our brand of democracy where there are two sets of laws - one for 
the affluent and powerful, the other for those whose lives hang on the 
barrels of the guns of the former?

Where is this leading us? We need the answer, sir.
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