Labares shooting:twists and turns

Nilo Labares was shot on March 5, 2009 at Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro.  By stroke of chance he survived, and pointed the finger at the triggerman, a certain Bernardo “Nanding” Aguilar.  The suspect is charged with frustrated murder. He is out on bail.

The police work is closed.  The prosecution starts. Not really. When people are about to have a sigh of relief, the plot and sub-plots are unfolding.

Right after Felizar “Boyet” Caytor was cleared temporarily by the public prosecutor, he exposed the alleged payola involving personnel of DxCC-RMN. The media attention was successfully redirected from the frustrated murder to the alleged payola.

By March 11, 2009, Bombo Radyo allegedly received a letter from Ka Paris, a known leader of the CPP-NPA in this part of Mindanao, owning responsibility for the shooting of Nilo Labares.

Instantly, the shooting was transformed from the underworld of hoodlums, thugs, and gamblers to the underground rebel movement; from sheer crime and vice to something ideological in origin and cause.

The cloud of confusion was tossed in the air. Did Nilo correctly identify Bernardo Aguilar as the gunman?  If he did, then what has rebellion got to do with video karera?  Unless of course, the rebels, tired and emaciated, decided to play the gambler’s game.

Or perhaps, if we may be allowed to indulge in flights of fancy, Bernardo Aguilar may not be after all acting in behalf of the suspected mastermind – a certain Baby Chang – but upon instructions of Joma Sison.  This is not impossible given the state of the art communication that we have now. See how the spin doctors can get so naïve and moronic?

Before the cloud of confusion due to the Ka Paris brouhaha subsided, another person claiming to be the spokesman of the North Central Command of the CPP-NPA was interviewed over Bombo Radyo last March 16, 2009. This time, the spokesman, in behalf of the communist movement, disowned the shooting.

Who said that only novels have sub-plots?  Are not truths stranger than fiction?

Col. Antonio Montalba of the Cagayan de Oro Police Command filed a case of illegal gambling against Nilo Labares. Having allegedly received payola from the video karera operators, Col. Montalba would have him prosecuted for his complicity in the gambling syndicate. This is simply ludicrous.  Since when did the nemesis of illegal gambling become the protector?

Col. Montalba, I would have commended you for the effort. But before going after the heads of these media men, identify first the John Does involved in the shooting, and the hoodlums who harassed the witnesses of Labares’ shooting.  Consolidate your police work to pin down the alleged mastermind Baby Chang. 

Here is the wisdom of the age.  If you hold to many grains at one time and try to hold them tight in your hand, you end-up with nothing. Do not get your hands full at one time, or you end-up bungling your police work and blame the acquittal of your suspects on the prosecution.

Ah, do not shout expletives at me now.   Truth may not be stranger than fiction.  Spin masters, without them knowing, actually reveal the truth that they try hard to confound and confuse. When the smoke settles, and the fire-breathing mouths cool off, the particles of truth emerge in the very ground upon whom people try to muddle.

The particles of truth are emerging from the very cloud of dust that the real criminals are tossing in the air.

The alleged payola may be a diversionary tactic.  But the buzz in town is that some media men live in styles, that lifestyle checks should not be limited to the politicians.  Should I mention anchormen who strut around in flashy cars?  Or a mere reporter, without inherited wealth, nor lotto winnings, aping the life of the wealthy? 

As for Nilo, how I wish you were riding on a big bike when you were shot so that I could pillory you. But your motor scooter, and poor station in life, and the venom that comes out from your mouth when you assail these video karera operators, common sense dictates that I should spare you for now.

And where does the police force situate in these twists and turns?

Right there at the eye of the storm.  Video karera operations are within the striking distance of police stations and yet nothing had been done before the shooting. Col. Montalba, it would help your credibility if you hang the alleged mastermind first before you hang these media men on the strength on the affidavits of the underworld figures, Felizar Caytor and Bernardo Aguilar.  Nothing comes out clean from a poisoned source. Did you not know a principle on evidence in your schooling?

Or is the case filed against Nilo Labares has no other purpose but to hide the criminals under your gala uniform? Or is it a vengeance against Nilo for mentioning you as one of the protectors? 

Regional State Prosecutor Umpa, please come to the rescue, and restore sanity to the carnival of so-called police investigations. After my almost two decades of the private practice of law, I can smell the gun powder that points to the source.

Bombo Radyo, please. Ka Paris? CPP-NPA?  My foot! Investigate your anchorman who struts around in really flashy cars.  

Knowing Nilo

Another write-up on press freedom would be a ninth of a series. This column already discussed the different angles about the press, and the need to protect this freedom at all cost, being the priciest jewel in the many civil liberties under a democratic set-up.

 The temptation to forego another topic about muzzling of the media has been strong. But how one can let the issue pass, especially the frustrated murder of Nilo Labares, he who started his journalistic pursuits in the school paper I once edited.

When the news that Nilo was shot at around 8:30 in the evening of March 5, 2009 in Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro City, the flashback of our student days at Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan came racing in my mind.  

In 1984, Nilo was a seminarian.  He was not a familiar face in the campus, just like the rest of the seminarians who would come early and leave early the campus.  A vehicle would fetch the future ministers of the church. Their routine had to be followed.

 But his performance in one school activity changed all that.

He delivered an enchanting ode or “balak”, completely in the Bisayan dialect. It was an original composition written in lyrical and archaic words that one wonders why the native Bisayan tongue was adulterated with Tagalog, Spanish, and English languages. His performance was both entertaining and educational.  But more, the audience was transported back in time before the Spaniards came when we had our very own culture that we could be proud of.

He went on to edit one whole page of The Crusader, the official student publication of the students of Xavier University.  He wrote and edited poems, short stories, plays, and essays written in the vernacular.  Overnight, he was the go to guy to translate words in the vernacular.  Suddenly, the school paper was flooded with contributions written in the vernacular.  He stoked the fires for things “bisaya” in the campus.

Later, Nilo decided not to preach the Gospel, but decided instead to trumpet the truth.  He left the seminary and joined the press.

 He has been a broadcaster at a radio outlet, dxCC. Over the airwaves, you could hear his tirades against corruption, gambling, violence, and a host of issues.  Unlike other radio commentators who pick politicians to attack and even malign, Nilo picks on issues and discuss them.  His journalism is not selective nor, to use the cliché, “envelopmental”. Nor was his practice of the profession one of licentiousness, unlike the many who spews venom from their mouths, without the backing of hard facts.

Nilo’s shooting does not only deserve a write-up due to friendship.  The extra-judicial killings of media men deserve utmost discussion. A week before his shooting, the press organizations have been holding indignation rallies to protest the spate of assassinations of media men. Since 1986, when democracy was restored, there have been 64 extra-judicial killing of media people.  God forbid! Nilo could have been the latest in the statistics count.

What is peculiar about this extra-judicial killing is that most have been unsolved.  Meaning, we have yet to see a person finally convicted and put to prison.  The arrests have been sparse, and the prosecution minimal. Give me yet a name of the convicted felon.  In Nilo’s case, two out of the four suspects have been identified, so the police reports.

Police work however has always been wanting. The investigation goes full swing when the killing is still being discussed.  The moment media attention is redirected to other issues, police works slacken, and the pursuit for the criminals archived in the records.

 The Arroyo government has organized task forces to pursue the perpetrators.  “Oplans” after “oplans”  have been created.  Yet, if we calibrate the result as against the plans, we may safely conclude that these “oplans” have not been really well-planned at all.

 Media men are most vulnerable to assaults. They cannot afford to hire bodyguards nor do they strut around in cars, except those who opt for “envelopmental” journalism, or AC-DC, the idiom for attack and collect.

 When Nilo was shot, he was driving his scooter. That is what he can afford.  He was in for the taking by the assailants who were riding flashy bikes.  The angels at Carmelite Seminary protected their son.

 Fortunately, this write-up is not a eulogy.  Despite the serious wound, he survives to continue his crusade.  Go on my friend, and like a Don Quixote, fight the windmills.

 

Killing the messenger

The statistics are rising.  From the time she assumed office in 2001 up to the present, there has been 64 extra-judicial killing of journalists already.  The Arroyo administration it seems is racing to break the record of Ferdinand Marcos in terms of media people being killed, and of unsolved crimes.

It is easy to understand why many were killed during the Martial Law regime.  To elaborate on the reasons is stating the obvious.  But in an atmosphere of democracy which we as a people regained after the EDSA revolution in 1986, it is difficult to comprehend, must more accept, why the killing of messengers go unabated.

Incomprehensible still is why, despite the many witnesses, we have yet to forever lock in jail the perpetrators. The government cannot turn its eyes away from the assassinations. In the pole of responsibility, the buck stops at the top – the president.

Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Philippines is a dangerous place for journalists to live.  This notoriety of killing the messengers go along with another record of sorts: Philippines is gunning to top the world record in corruption.

Again, record of cronyism and corruption during the Marcos regime, is equaled, if not surpassed, under the Arroyo administration.

If you put the two records together – corruption and extra-judicial killing of journalists – you get to understand the entire picture.  You get to understand why in terms of the notorious records, Ferdinand Marcos has a rival in Gloria Arroyo.

The message is corruption.  In our society, the messenger is the journalist.  The more the message gets ugly the more journalists get killed.

Last November 17, 2008, radio commentator Arecio Padrigao from Gingoog City was gunned down in broad daylight.  His kid witnessed the killing. On January 22, 2009, in Cotabato city, another journalist, Badrodin Abas died of gunshot wound.  Barely a month later, on February 23, 2009, two days before the EDSA revolution anniversary, radio commentator Ernie Rollin  was shot to death in Oroquieta City.  Her lived-in partner Ligaya witnessed the incident.  Ligaya recalled:  “When Ernie was lying already in the ground, the assailant pumped into his head the fatal fourth bullet”. Chilling words.

Aside from their common profession, these journalists were killed when they tackled the common message: corruption.

Where there is rampant corruption, you could hear, read, and see journalists exposing the issue.  That is their function in democracy.  When the three branches of government fail to check each other, the fourth estate, is the last citadel through which the sentiments of the people are crystallized, and calls for reform take shape.

No wonder that the journalist lives a riskier life when corruption gets uglier.

Those hit by the exposes either try to silence the media by filing libel cases, or worse, hire hitmen, to forever mute the media.  But they are darn wrong.

These perpetrators do not read their history, or having read them, fail to grasp the lesson.  The lesson is clear.  You can kill the messenger but you cannot kill the message.

Marcos tried to silence the messengers of truth, freedom and democracy.  Ninoy Aquino was jailed, and having failed to silence him, he was assassinated. Evelio Javier died in the assailant’s hands. Lean Alejandro who championed the student’s rights was also killed. Marcos had tried all the menus to silence the people.  Yet, when the messengers died, the message was carried on not my individuals, but by the Filipinos as a race. The rest was history.

You kill Padrigao, Abas, Rollin and other journalists, but as long as the message remains, someone else will take the cudgel and expose the truth.  Listen to the successor of Ernie Rollin in his program in DxSY-AM. “You have killed Ernie, but you have to kill me too because I will continue exposing corruption in the government.”  These are words of anguish and at the same defiance of human tragedy if only to proclaim the truth.

The perpetrators have not learned another lesson in our recent history: you kill media men, and like sticks forming a broom, they unite, and their exposes more intense and daring.

You do not kill media men.  That is a wrong route.  Get your act together. Get rid of corruption. Imprison Garci, Jocjoc Volante, and Jose Pidal.  If there is no message of corruption, there is no need to kill the messenger because there will be none in the first place.