Issue
Analysis No. 09
August
10, 2005
THE FALSEHOOD COMMISSION
THE ARROYO government, as Archbishop Oscar Cruz so aptly describes
it, is without values, morals and principles, and one of the values
it least respects is truth. The bribery and harassment of witnesses
implicating Mrs. Arroyo and her family in the jueteng pay-offs scandal
and in electoral fraud which Archbishop Cruz alleges is in fact
not the only way to keep the truth from the public to which Mrs.
Arroyo and her gang have resorted. They have themselves taken liberties
with the truth at various times, and from all appearances are prepared
to keep doing so.
When
the “Hello Garci” scandal was about to break out last
June, Malacanang tried to discredit whatever recordings the opposition
would make public by claiming that these had been doctored, and
that, indeed, it had the original ones—in which a woman who
sounded like Mrs. Arroyo was talking to someone Malacanang said
was a “Gary” who was other than “Garci”
(former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcellano).
In making this claim, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye initially said
the woman was definitely Mrs. Arroyo, only to declare later that
he wasn’t sure, and that, in any case, he was only expressing
an opinion. Later Mrs. Arroyo herself admitted to a mere “lapse
in judgment” in talking to the man in the tapes—whom
she would neither confirm nor deny was Garcillano—supposedly
to “protect” her votes.
The list goes on and on, and not only in connection with the “Hello
Garci” and jueteng scandals. Mrs. Arroyo’s State of
the Nation Address, for example, was replete with claims, such as
her having supposedly generated four million jobs in four years,
and her government’s providing the homeless with shelter,
that in other cultures would have been dismissed as outright lies.
But as long as the Arroyo government’s list of lies already
is, it is likely to lengthen further, ironically through, among
other vehicles, the so-called “Truth Commission” Mrs.
Arroyo said last July 19 she would organize, and whose membership
she said she would announce by July 25.
Mrs. Arroyo has so far done neither, primarily because no one with
an ounce of self-respect would like to be identified with it. Mrs.
Arroyo, however, will not be deterred, and is determined to create
the Commission, since, it was clear from the very moment she announced
her willingness to create it, that it is the means through which
she plans to exonerate herself.
She has thus announced that (1) the commission would have no power
other than that of fact-finding, and (2) its mandate would include
not only the investigation of the charges of electoral fraud leveled
against her, but also the “destabilization conspiracy”
that Malacanang claims was behind the allegations.
Although an outrage from the very beginning—not only would
the accused create a body to investigate herself, much like a murderer’s
selecting the judge and jury in his own trial—that she should
also turn the tables on her accusers by investigating them, which
is roughly equivalent to the same murderer’s ordering the
judge to investigate the prosecutor was expected.
The alacrity with which Mrs. Arroyo grabbed at the suggestion of
the University of Santo Tomas, the Catholic Bishops Conference,
and the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference to create the commission
was a clear indication that their suggestion was exactly what she
wanted. Her inclusion of the so-called “destabilization conspiracy”
against her in the yet-to-be-created commission is now saying that
she intends to use the commission not only to conceal rather than
find the truth, but also to blame the crisis on her accusers.
Mrs. Arroyo will first of all create the commission through an executive
order. She will define its functions. She will decide its responsibilities.
She will specify its objectives, membership, and organization. She
will assign it a budget. She will name the members herself. And,
as she announced last July 27, she will include in its mandate not
only that of looking into the allegations that she cheated in the
May 2004 elections with the connivance of key Commission on Elections
as well as police, military and civilian bureaucracy officials,
but also that of looking into the “conspiracy” supposedly
behind the allegations against her.
Under these circumstances the commission Mrs. Arroyo plans to create
might as well be called The Falsehood Commission. It is obvious
why. Truth commissions—only five were created in the last
two decades in testimony of the fact they are not to be taken lightly—are
first of all premised on the assumption that a wrong has been committed.
In Chile, South Africa, Argentina, Peru and El Salvador, the wrong-doing
of the previous government was a given and well established. The
mission of the truth commissions in each of these countries was
to determine the causes of such state-sponsored crimes as arbitrary
arrests, torture, kidnapping, force disappearances and murder so
that they may never again be repeated. In addition, they were meant
to identify and punish the guilty, as well as compensate the victims
as preconditions for the healing and reconciliation that was needed.
Especially critical in the credibility and integrity of truth commissions
is who creates them—a fact obvious to anyone except Mrs. Arroyo
and company. The truth commission of Chile was thus created by the
successor of General Augusto Pinochet; that of South Africa by Nelson
Mandela after the collapse of apartheid; Argentina’s by Raul
Alfonsin; El Salvador’s by the United Nations; and Peru’s
by Alejandro Toledo to investigate the regime of his predecessor
Alberto Fujimori.
The “Truth Commission” is an idea whose time has not
yet come in the Philippines. It is best left for the successor to
the Arroyo government to create. A bad idea from the start if created
and implemented by the very officials accused of conspiracy and
other high crimes against the Constitution, in the hands of Mrs.
Arroyo and her cabal of liars it is likely to turn into a total
war against truth, first because the very government accused of
wrong-doing will in effect investigate itself; second because it
is likely to be used to exonerate its creator; and third because
it will be used to persecute Mrs. Arroyo’s accusers. Truth
can only be the Arroyo commission’s first casualty, as well
as its last.
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