RAMBO

It was sunny morning when I left our office in Daraga and boarded a jeepney going to Legazpi City. Preoccupied with lots of things for the day, I did not give a glance to the mother and son going out of an elementary Christian school, and boarding the same jeepney where I was in. Until I saw the printed at the back of the mother’s shirt.

Considering the kind of vocation I have chosen, I found the words so fitting to me that even though I had a hard time deciphering due to my eye difficulty, I hastily took out my phone and began typing and saving them in the outbox folder.

After that tiring day, I immediately showed my saved message to a colleague. And to my greatest shock, those were the words of a fellow Albayano. Though I neither met him in person nor worked with him, I still call him a fellow.

These were the words in red, printed on the back of the shirt of that woman:

“If the bullets of my enemies will
trigger them to be happy so be it… in
my 21 years..."

Rambo

I thought that that the Rambo printed on the woman’s shirt was the famous action movie protagonist from David Morrell's novel First Blood, who demonstrated heroism through raging bullets and fierce fight scenes as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone on its big screen version. I thought those words were from one of his movies. But I was wrong.

On the other hand, the author of those words was also famous. He is Rei Mon Guran. He is ‘Ambo’ to his family and ‘Rambo’ to his friends.

Rambo was a second year political science student of Aquinas University of Legazpi. He was the Provincial Spokesperson of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) in Albay and an active member of UCCP's Christian Youth Fellowship.

Sad to say, he is now dead.

He just turned 21 last 30 July 2006, a day before he succumbed to four gunshot wounds – two in the head, one in the body and another in the hand, while onboard a bus on his way to school. The outrageous killing of Rambo was accomplished ten days after churches and religious organizations held the Human Rights and Peace Summit. Two more activists were killed on the same day. Four months before, 19 March to be exact, when a very good friend of him, Cris Hugo, was extra judicially killed too. Adding to their number are five more Bicolano youth killed in a span of two years, totaling to the number of seven youth, extra judicially killed!

On Tuesday, 31 July, will be the first year death anniversary of Ambo. Still there is no justice for Rambo’s death.

Will it still be served? That is our question.

We have to be realistic on these pressing issues. The summary killings of activists I believe were done by the state itself through the military and their agents. And sadly, they were done with impunity that not even a single case was solved.

The Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT), headed by Prof. Phillip Alston, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, pronounced that the RP President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and US President George W. Bush were liable to these extrajudicial killings of activists. In spite of this, the government has continued being obstinate on the issue and idle to prove to the international community that the verdict of the PPT is misguided.

Worse, the killings continued. And fear lurked in the hearts of many. And many more succumbed to that fear. So that gone is the many who fight for their rights. But then, there are still few who’s unafraid. Few who continued fighting for the advocacies that has been fought for by our ancestors, none other than real liberty.

I personally believe that as long as the perpetrators are being protected by the government, clear answers will always be impossible, and justice will never be served. Ever.

But still, we want justice and real freedom. And if we will lurk in the corner of our houses because of the fear that bullets would hit our borrowed bodies, nothing we shall attain.

In all kinds of liberation, blood is a necessity. Even man, when finally liberated from the chains of sin, has to sacrifice a fellow man’s blood – Christ himself. The same thing is happening in the country. In our continued search for liberation, many men have to offer their blood to attain liberty. And proud are those chosen to take part in this sacrifice. However, I am not saying that things have to be as brutal as to drain society of patriotic blood. It is animalistic and outrageous reaction of a threatened and guilty government with its sins against its people. Killing summarily its critics is the government’s last resort of survival. Unfortunately, it was wrong. For every man’s life taken extra-judicially, is an army of patriotic men bathed in that one Man’s blood.

Much to our and the international communities’ dismay, the Arroyo government continued denying its involvement in the killing of more than 863 Filipinos and forced disappearances of 197 more. It has resorted to saying that the perpetrators of the said killings are also from the line of the activists. Such ignorance! Those were the same allegations that the Jews threw to Christ when He cast out demons and evil spirits from many people during His time. They called Him Beelzebub (name of the leader of the devils), for He can cast away evils. And He said to them “… every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? Because he say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out?”

Funny is the government for pointing Beelzebubs and sowing confusion to the people. Where is the state’s transparency and truthfulness when it deprives the people of the truth that it must give without any prejudice of doubt, protected by the Philippine Constitution itself in Article III, Section 7? But what the government is doing is the exact opposite.

And now, these acts of the state (though how animalistic they may be) will be legalized and justified with the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Law or the Republic Act 9372 euphemistically titled as the Human Security Act of 2007. This law slaps our human rights in both faces most especially our civil liberties.

They have been saying that this law is toothless. Yeah, for them, for this is a State Security Act. Now, our fear would be the number that will be added to the anthill of victims of human rights violations. Last 20 July, a Martial Law was unofficially declared all over the land. Lady Justice was not only blindfolded but now, she was also gagged and chained! However, in spite of this looming danger, many are still dumb, deaf and blind. Their reason: “why should we be afraid if we have nothing to fear about?” Crap! Such selfishness! They are collaborating with this fascist government in violating human rights for a temporary liberty. They indirectly consent to the commission of crimes against humanity. And they, according to Sir Benjamin Franklin, “who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor safety”. Would you allow a person to be stripped off of his rights when you know that that person also deserves the same right as you do? And you know you can do something to prevent that, yet you chose not to do something? Well, threefold of Rambos will be added to the list of killed patriotic youth if we do nothing.

This government of ours will do everything to silence the people especially we —the youth. The final words of the President in her recent State of the Nation Address (SONA) were disturbing, suggestive and warning when she said:

Uulitin ko: Hindi ako sagabal sa ambisyon ninuman.

But make no mistake. I will not stand idly when anyone gets in the way of the national interest and tries to block the national vision. From where I sit, I can tell you, a President is always as strong as she wants to be.

There is only one question that we have to ask ourselves. It is: For whom are we? If we say we are for the people, then be for the people and only for the people. Our interests should be always for the benefit of the people. No many buts and ifs. If you are for the government, then be for the government. It is either left or right. In this existence, there is no gray area, no neutrality. When will we ever make a stand? When we are the next victim? Let us never forget the words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller in Nazi Germany:

"In Germany they [the Nazis] came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."