Trillanes: Bonifacio or Gringo?

I hear that several media groups are readying charges to be filed against the government, the police, especially, for the indignities they were made to undergo as the Peninsula caper was winding up. Me, I know what they are feeling right now, but experience has taught me that we media people are really a very forgiving lot. We also quickly forget the big stories of yesterday, especially if a bigger one comes up right after it. Anyway, the journalists covering that incident are still deserving to be called heroes. Can you imagine what would have happened to Trillanes et al, if the media people were not there? I can.

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What I am curious about now is what the police mean by “arrest”. An officer said on TV yesterday that the journalists were NOT arrested. So what do you call being pushed around, made to lie face down on the floor, having their wrists tied, being packed into buses, and carted off to Bagong Diwa for several hours of “processing”? And I'm ignorant when it comes to police parlance, what also does “processing” mean? Is it being treated like meat or pork, or other kinds of food? From what I read in the dailies, what my colleagues went through sounds very much like being arrested. What about you?

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The siege conducted by the police on the Peninsula Hotel reminded me very much of the attack staged also by policemen and members of the Regional Mobile Group on the Iloilo Provincial Capitol. That was when Governor Niel Tupas also did a stand-off when the Local Government people wanted to pluck him out of the office. Until now, the television scene showing the uniformed and fully-armed cops bulldozing their way into the building, ramming down its glass doors, even if the governor and his family and staff were not fighting back, remains very clear. What happened to that case, by the way?

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She may not have done it on purpose, but President Arroyo helped herself a lot when she made some noise at the recent meeting of ASEAN leaders calling for the release of house-arrested Myanmar leader Ang San Suu Kyi, and slamming the hold of the military junta on the country. When Trillanes and Lim moved last week, people immediately remembered what happens to countries controlled by soldiers. As for Senator Trillanes, I wonder who his role model is? Is it Andres Bonifacio, or Gringo?

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I wonder how the instant curfew declared by Malacañang fared Thursday night? It was already quite late when it was announced that there would be checkpoints in entry points to Manila, and that curfew would be imposed from 12 midnight to 5 a.m. How could the news that they could no longer leave, or return to their homes, reach everyone at that late hour? If, as the Malacañang announcers said, those apprehended would be taken to the police stations, I'm sure a lot of stations were overflowing that night.

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But, just between us girls (as Johnny Mercado likes to say), I don't believe they really thought there could be complete compliance with the curfew order. That is why the police officer who was interviewed Thursday night enumerated so many exemptions, nobody could have been apprehended, anyway. For instance, he said that those leaving or arriving by plane on night flights would be excused, including their welcomers. Doctors, drivers of public utility vehicles, members of the diplomatic corps would be exempt, too. I think it was an easy curfew, a toothless one. I like the quotation of that ASEAN leader who criticized the group as being “all tongue and no teeth”. Very apt, no?

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Remember what Shakespeare made Mark Anthony say before the body of the slain Julius Caesar? “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” This seems to be applied to the late Aliodin Dalaig, the Legal Officer of the Commission on Election who was gunned down one night while he was about to enter the Casino. It had already been mystifying that he was said to be wearing expensive gold jewelry and more than P700,000 in cash. It further puzzled people that his killers did not get his money.

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Recently, Newsbreak, the fearless publication of some of Philippine media's feistiest females, came out with its findings on the background of Dalaig. And what they unearthed was not the martyr some media reports made him out to be. The report said he had morphed from a likeable, humble employee, to an arrogant, and distant one after former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos promoted him and appeared to have full trust in him. So it is true, as the saying goes, that thing are not always what they seem.*

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