Reactions I need to consider

Today, being the first day of December, allow me to greet all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. I hope that I have satisfied my social obligations to you my readers.

I take this privilege to greet you because shortly after I wrote my column entitled “Why the OVP Needs Billions” I received two interesting reactions. A gentleman called my phone. I was happy to realize that there is still a “land line.” I thought the cellular has completely rendered old phone junk and useless.

To put into context the gentleman’s call, he read to me a part of my November 24 article. I then wrote “a Digong political shadow unfortunately includes the gruesome sense of impunity evidenced by the thousands of extra-judicial killings alleged to have been perpetuated by men in uniform loyal to the past regime.”

Anyway, my caller wanted me to write about the supposed case in the International Criminal Court filed against former President Rodrigo Duterte. To him, this is an issue that all Filipinos must continue to talk about. In his mind, the search for justice to those thousands who died at the hands of some trigger happy men in uniform must be pursued to its logical end. He lamented though that the last report he read from foreign sources was published more than a year ago. My caller referred to a September 2021 news that “pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized the court’s Office of the Prosecutor to open an official investigation into crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the Philippines between 2011 and 2019 as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial “war on drugs.” Nothing more came after that report. The dearth of reportage is an indicia that the case is facing uphill battle and that’s his reason we should keep it alive in our daily discussions lest it be totally forgotten.

The second reactor was easy to understand even if we did not talk. In my article, I said that “a Digong economic shadow takes the form of our country’s incredible indebtedness of more than thirteen trillion pesos. No Philippine president since our 1946 independence, xx ever obtained an indebtedness in the unbelievable sum that Digong got. He just sent to me a Facebook post that read in Tagalog the late President Benigno Simeon Aquino III NAG IWAN NG P 1 TRILYON BUDGET while former President Rodrigo Duterte MAG IIWAN NG P 13.4 TRILYON NA UTANG. The figures showed Aquino being a better Philippine economic manager than Duterte.

I am not in the habit of commenting on the reactions of my readers or we enter a debating club. However, I consider the two reactions above as exceptions. The first reactor could be a judge, prosecutor, police officer or an academician whose only motivation in our continuing to discuss the “extra judicial killings” is to find the truth. In effect, he is alerting BBM- Sara (probably his choices in the last election) to prepare for the possibility that the International Criminal Court might issue a warrant for the arrest of Duterte.

The second reactor is a fellow Boholano, who, I imagined, campaigned for Robredo. I do not have his permission to print his name here. I am sure though that his FB post had no more political tint. In previous conversations we had, he expressed disbelief on the result of the election but, in his words, that’s how the cookie crumbled. Like the first reactor, he is angered by a Duterte legacy. That Duterte left our country with a kind indebtedness we may not be able to pay. End is his beef.