We believe that good can and will overcome evil
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By: Father Shay Cullen
Good can and will overcome evil. That is one of the basic beliefs of Christianity. The religious processions that wound their way through barrios and towns throughout the Philippines this past Holy Week bore testimony to this core belief and faith of Filipinos.
Theirs is an unshakeable belief that the injustice, torture cruel suffering and the unjust execution of Jesus Christ, Son of God as a criminal and subversive is the grim reality of their own lives. They see themselves in him and in his passion. They see themselves crucified and nailed to the economic cross of poverty and injustice, villainy and human rights violations. They too have that enduring hope that they will experience a God like resurrection, an exaltation and ascension to victory.
Goodness they believe will conquer evil, truth will eventually overwhelm lies, honesty will triumph over deceit. They believe the Gospel promise that the just will be rewarded and wrongdoers will be justly punished. Such is their hope that it keep them struggling along the path to Calvary carrying their cross of unjust burdens and from there their hope carries them to the mount of the ascension.
The image of the just and outspoken Jesus of Nazareth being tortured and executed for protecting the poor and the exploited and challenging the authorities is a powerful source of strength for the oppressed Christian.
Here in the Philippines, the just are persecuted and executed for exposing the truth about corruption and human rights violations. Twelve journalists have been brutally murdered in the past 18 months alone. Human Rights defenders are being murdered daily, yet none of their killers have been brought to justice.
The failed assassination attempt on the life of Romeo T. Capulong, a human rights lawyer and ad litem judge of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, was attacked in his farm in Nueva Ecija, last March 7. Philippine based human rights defenders have concluded it is because of his role as legal advisor to the striking workers at Hacienda Luisita. This is a large sugar estate owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino in the province of Tarlac.
Last 16 November 2004 Philippine military and police shot and killed 7 striking workers and wounded many more. Two babies in the vicinity died as a result of excessive use of tear gas to disperse the picket at the sprawling and vastly wealthy plantation.
Since then, there have been many mysterious murders of supporters of the strike and witnesses to the massacre. A death squad is at work and human rights defenders have documented 40 murders of social rights activists since 16 of November.
Some authorities say communists are behind the strike and that their evil ideology threatens the state while hypocritically other government officials rush to warmly embrace Chinese communist investors and are falling over themselves to reduce import tariffs and throw open the economy to their unemployment creating imports.
None of this has gone unnoticed by the international community and human rights defenders worldwide. They are making their protests heard and demanding that their governments review their aid and investment projects in the Philippines until there is a clear improvement in the protection of constitutional rights to protest, strike, demonstrate and exercise freedom of speech. We can rightly assume that hundreds of ethical and principled investors are silently turning away from investing here because of this.
The Philippine Administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo must be helped to understand the killing squads are doing untold harm and officials are ignoring these violations of human rights. By suppressing legitimate protest at social injustice and gagging the media through fear a democratic society slides towards tyranny.
By taking the stance of Pilate and washing their hands of the blood of the innocent, government officials can never wash away the stain of complicity and guilt. It will continue eroding any good will and support here and in the international community. Any good that has been achieved will be lost.
The internal suppression of dissent and legitimate protest with brutal death squads will only mark the administration as a bloody regime dressed in the robes of hypocrisy. The administration must save itself from such ignominy and repudiate these killings and call off the death squads.
Silence in the face of evil is approval. When journalists speak out they are killed, when priests take a stand they are gunned down, when human rights workers work of justice they are executed. Who are the real terrorists? This government must save itself from the excesses of its out-of-control killer squads that murder with impunity. All the good that it is trying to do is being washed away with the blood of the innocent.
Popular dissent will begin to rise up and nothing will stop it when enough people are outraged at the senseless killing and corruption, greed and perfidy that are behind it. All of these violations to save the hacienda of a single wealthy family, the longed for economic social political resurrection of the Filipinos is still a long way off.
It is only by compassionate understanding of the historical grievances and injustices of the workers, the poor, the oppressed minorities taking honest and sincere moves to rectify these wrongs by respecting the people’s rights will the nation ever recover and break free for the stranglehold of the elite and find true freedom and greatness. (End)
