Culture of impunity

I wanted to write about the 1960 song of Teddy Randazzo, entitled “The Way of a Clown” and try to humorize a recent declaration of President Rodrigo Duterte. I was shocked by the president when he said that his campaign promise to ride a jet ski to the Scarborough Shoal to assert our territorial rights over the West Philippine Sea was just a joke. Actually, I earlier finished playing Randazzo’s vinyl on my antique components when Duterte revealed that he was clowning during a campaign debate. I so felt grievously insulted when Duterte ridiculed as “stupid” the more than 16 million Filipinos who probably voted him to power on that campaign promise that I then tinkered with the idea of putting in a rather humorous and amusing light that unthinkably humiliating presidential pronouncement using these first few lines of the Randazzo song “I'll make you laugh when you're blue, That way I can be close to you, From the start; I play the part, xxx that’s the way of a clown”. That way, I would also come true to the off-tangent nature of this column.

 Among his political promises, Duterte’s commitment to plant the Philippine flag on an island in the West Philippine Sea was the most nationalistic. His commitment of asserting our sovereignty against the bullying of a mighty Communist China restored our national dignity and pride. To 16 million plus voters, it ranked higher than all his other pledges combined.

But, while I started contemplating how to compose this article, I heard my other favorite broadcaster, Sir Leo Lastimosa and his partner Atty. Ina Magpale connect the joke of President Duterte to a viral showing two government officials, whose names they did not mention, in a dirty dancing sequence. Sir Leo called it indecent, malicious, and immoral primarily because the man, a reported regional director, was married to a woman who was not his dancing partner. From their discussion of this demonstrably immoral scene, they claimed that this act of the two high-strung officials was a product, a result and a consequence of the culture of impunity institutionalized in the administration of President Duterte.

I did not immediately comprehend what Sir Leo and Atty. Ina meant. How could dirty dancing, no matter how shameful, relate to culture of impunity? Or worse, why attach such act to the president? Their digression was too profound that I needed to research in order to understand what they were talking about.

A culture of impunity exists when those who deny others their right to freedom of expression can do so knowing it is unlikely they will be held accountable for their actions. Indeed, when someone acts with impunity, says the internet, it means that their actions have no consequences. A summary of a Time essay showed a litany of events otherwise violative of people’s rights such as extra-judicial killings, did not even get investigated. The killers were not brought to the bar of justice and were never held responsible for their acts. The protective mantle, often pronounced by the president, generated a sense of impunity to the likes of a police official named Marcos whose team raided a jail, one dawn, which assault killed a prisoner named Mayor Espinosa.

A form of impunity is concretized when we do not hold Duterte liable for tricking more than 16 million voters with a worthless joke. According to the broadcast of Sir Leo and Atty. Ina, that culture of impunity trickled down to the government officials engaged in public dirty dancing. I see their logic and I do not disagree with them.