SINS OF THE FATHER
“Why is not the son charged with the
guilt of his father?”—Ezekiel 18:19
The
son does not acknowledge but denies. He does not condemn but condones. He does
not repudiate but exonerates.
“I
can only apologize for myself,” he says. “I cannot apologize for anyone else.”
Do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.—Psalm 50:21
70,000
imprisoned…34,000 tortured…3,240 killed…2,520 salvaged…737 desaparecidos…
Let
us catalogue the methods of torture.
Electric shock was
administered to the victim’s fingers and genitals, or in the case of females,
nipples. Frequent shocks to the genitals would cause the victim to
uncontrollably urinate, and through the buttocks to unintentionally defecate.
Beatings were common,
using fists, kicks, and karate blows. Rifle butts, wooden clubs, glass soft
drink bottles, and other weapons would be used. Victims might have their heads
rammed repeatedly against the wall until they were knocked unconscious.
Everyday
implements—ballpoint pens, thumb tacks, or pliers—would be used to assault victims.
Hands,
wire, or steel bars would be used to strangulate
the victims, which would damage the
victims’ ability to breathe or speak, or kill them.
Dubbed
San Juanico Bridge, victims would be
forced to suspend themselves in the air, anchoring their head and feet on two
separate beds set a body length apart. When the victims sagged, they were
beaten.
Using
the water cure, water, usually dirty,
or abhorrent liquids like urine or sewage would be forced down the victims’
mouths and throats, causing gastric distention, and then it would be forced out
by beatings, sometimes resulting in death.
Burns would be inflicted
using cigarettes or flat irons, causing blistering, bleeding, scarring, or disfigurement,
sometimes resulting in infection, or severing body parts.
According
to Russian roulette, the gun cylinder
loaded with a single bullet would be spun around and the gun barrel would be
inserted into the victim’s mouth or aimed at the head, killing many in this way.
Sexual abuse was frequent,
involving sodomy, rape, beatings, stripping, humiliation, mutilation, sometimes,
death. A stick was inserted into the penis of at least one victim.
Pepper torture would be
directed at the lips, genitals, and other sensitive areas. Talong smeared with pepper would be inserted in the victim’s
vagina.
Victims
who were blindfolded, manacled, or boxed into very small spaces would undergo animal treatment. They would be ordered
to eat rotting food or disgusting items
like worms or human feces, and then beaten and threatened until they did.
Injected
with truth serum, victims would lapse
into delirium.
“What
I will never forget is the cruel extraction of my two molars at the Camp
Panopio dental service,” says one victim. “When the military dentist found out
I was a political detainee, he waived the use of anesthesia. I pleaded to him
but he merely sneered and instructed my escorts to just hold my arms.”
The
son remonstrates. “We have constantly said that if during the time of my father…there
were those who…were victimized in some way or another,” he says, “these are
instances that have fallen through the cracks.”
The
father is not responsible for the abuses committed? He did not participate in crimes
that took place under his command
responsibility?
Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found
me out, my enemy?” He said, “I have found you.”—1 Kings 21:20
On
February 23, 1994, a U.S. jury in a Honolulu court awarded $1.2 billion for exemplary damages against the Marcos estate, in a
class action suit involving 9,541 claims
of human rights victims under the Marcos regime from September 21, 1972 to
February 25, 1986. On January 18, 1995, the court awarded $766.4 million for compensatory damages.
In
1997 the Swiss Federal Supreme Court promulgated a decision returning more than $680 million in Marcos Swiss deposits to the Philippine government pending
its compliance with two conditions—the first, “a final and executory decision
of a credible Philippine court declaring the said funds as ill-gotten,” and the
second, that a “rightful share of the funds” should be given to the martial law
victims who won the Hawaii class action suit against the Marcos estate.
In
July 2003 the Philippine Supreme Court stated that the Marcos Swiss funds are
ill-gotten, complying with the first condition.
On
February 25, 2013, the Philippine government complied with the second condition
when President Aquino signed the Human Rights Victims Reparation and
Recognition Act of 2013, which awarded $246
million of some $683 million in Marcos
Swiss deposits to 9,539 victims in
the Hawaii class action suit. Beneficiaries are presumed victims of martial law
abuses and do not have to prove their claims.
So
far, 75,730 claims have been filed under
this law as direct victims of martial law during the Marcos regime or as next
of kin.
The
Act also created the Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission, tasked
to work with the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education
“to educate young people about the abuses committed by the Marcos regime and
the heroism by those who opposed it.”
In
2011 payments were made to 7,526 victims
in the 1995 and 1996 judgments from a $10
million settlement with a Marcos crony.
On
October 24, 2012, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a 2011
contempt judgment against Imelda and Bongbong Marcos. Because the Marcoses
refused to furnish the court with the information it had requested and continued
to use frozen assets of the estate, they were fined $353.6 million payable to the victims in the 1994 and 1995
judgments.
In
2014, the Singapore Court of Appeal upheld its Supreme Court decision assigning
over $23 million of Marcos’
ill-gotten wealth in Singapore to the Philippine National Bank.
75,730 claims…9,541 claims…9,539 victims…7,526 victims…$1.2
billion…$766.4 million…$683 million…$680 million…$353.6 million…$246 million…$23 million…$10 million…
Go
over the overwhelming, damning evidence of the Marcos crimes, piles, literally
mountains of it. Know the truth about Marcos-organized and executed murders,
torture, human rights violations, and plunder, and act accordingly.
Mountains
of corpses—tortured, mutilated, mangled, strangled, salvaged—Liliosa Hilao, Archimedes Trajano, Boyet
Mijares, Dr. Remberto Dela Paz…
Mountains
of personal testimonies—handwritten, audiotaped, transcribed, videotaped, recorded,
printed, published, produced—Trinidad
Herrera, Neri Colmenares, Hilda Narciso, Satur Ocampo…
Mountains
of documentation and evidence in the offices of the Presidential Commission on
Good Government—the father’s handwritten diary, presidential notepapers,
minutes of company meetings, contracts, “side agreements,” bank accounts in the
dozens, share certificates in the hundreds, reports of private investigators
and court judgements in the tens of thousands of pages…
Mountains
of world media coverage over the past three decades—print, TV, and online…Time, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York
Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, Reuters,
AP, UPI, The Guardian…
Mountains
of U.S. dollars in offshore accounts, including Swiss bank accounts of aliases William Saunders, John Lewis, Jane Ryan…
Mountains
of U.S. real estate—the Lindenmere estate in Westhampton Beach, Long Island,
the Crown Building on Fifth Avenue, the Herald Center on the Avenue of the
Americas, one 71-story office building on 40 Wall Street, another on 200
Madison Avenue, Webster Hotel on West 45th Street, the13-acre residential
estate at 3850 Princeton Pike, Princeton, two more at 4 Capshire Drive and 19
Pendleton Drive, Cherry Hill, New Jersey…
Mountains
of Philippine timber, half the entire country’s forest cover, 39 million acres’
worth, depleted through rampant logging…
Piles
of gold—13,915 pounds spirited away from the Central Bank of the Philippines…the
legendary General Yamashita’s 2,000-lb 18-karat golden Buddha, also
mysteriously disappeared…
Piles
of jewelry—gold, platinum, Colombian emeralds, Burmese rubies, Indian and South
African diamonds, a rare 25-carat pink diamond…rings, bracelets, necklaces,
tiaras, earrings, pendants, cufflinks, watches…Patek Philippe, Rolex, Cartier, Bulgari, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bucellatti…
Piles
of European masterpieces—Michelangelo, Raphael,
Titian, Veronese, El Greco, Zurbaran, Goya, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Picasso,
Braque…
Marcos
plundered $5 to $10 billion, estimates the World Bank-UN Office on Drugs and
Crime's (UNODC) Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative, $11 to $22 billion equivalent
today. What does $22 billion buy today?
$22
billion is one-and-a-half times the Gross Domestic Product of Iceland in 2015…it
buys one 30-km Singapore Thomson MRT Line…5 One World Trade Centers…8 Hubble
Space Telescopes…14 Golden Gate Bridges…21 top-division European football
clubs…67 Boeing 777’s…it feeds 872,324 families of four in the U.S. for one
year…
“We
practically own everything in the Philippines,” says Imelda, “from electricity,
telecommunications, airlines, banking, beer and tobacco, newspaper publishing,
television stations, shipping, oil and mining, hotels and beach resorts, down
to coconut milling, small farms, real estate and insurance.”
Can’t
the son show at least the smallest remorse for the father’s sins?
“I
cannot deny what my father did,” says Martin Bormann Jr., showing deep pain. “I
cannot.” Was the death sentence at Nuremberg correctly meted out upon his
father? “Yes,” he answers, slowly, firmly.
If
the sins of the father are not the sins of the son, then shouldn’t the son restitute
the plunder of the father?
Kapag hindi minana ng anak ang mga
kasalanan ng ama, bakit niya minana ang ninakaw?
If
the son did not inherit the sins of the father, then why does he inherit the
plunder?
In
2012 the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled that about $40 million in the account of Arelma S.A., a
Panamanian-registered corporation created by Marcos on September 21, 1972, the
day he declared martial law, is ill-gotten wealth. By supporting over 20 years’
litigation, still ongoing, the son has been blocking the release of the funds.
How
much again? $40 million…
Marcos,
the father, destroyed Philippine democratic institutions and wrecked the
Philippine economy. That is why he is a traitor to our country. He shed blood
to stay in power. Blood drenches his hands. He looted the country and
impoverished the nation. His plunder is stained with blood. He is worse than
Judas Iscariot, a traitor, a murderer, and a thief, because the spoils of the
father amount to a very great deal more than thirty pieces of silver and he did
not, unlike the Iscariot, return the money.
“That upper spirit, who has the worst punishment,” so spoke my
guide, “is Judas, he that has his head
within and plies his feet without.”—Inferno, Canto XXXIV, 56-59
Murder,
torture, human rights abuses, plunder—you cannot acknowledge this or at least feel
the slightest speck of shame?
Apologize
for the sins of the father. Return the blood money. It is worth a lot more than
thirty pieces of silver.
Originally published in The Galway Review (July 3, 2016)
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| Bongbong Marcos versus Leni Robredo, Philippine Vice-Presidential Debate, April 10, 2016 |
