You must have read or heard about it. The convicted military officers who staged some kind of uprising in 2003 dubbed the Oakwood Mutiny are seeking pardon. It’s been all over the news but we were furniture hunting and that was more important than writing about these… these…
People… you stage a coup and announce you’re doing it out of prinsipyo then you turn around and ask for forgiveness from the very person you sought to overthrow. It’s one thing to admit an honest mistake but it’s another story when one changes alliances because doing so is more convenient. That kinda takes prinsipyo out of the equation, if it was ever there at all.
That’s what happens when a former president convicted of plundering the national treasury is granted pardon. Erap is a bad example; a bad precedent. These soldiers think that once free they can go around making public speeches and press conferences announcing their innocence and undying love for the country. You know, make themselves out as heroes albeit in a form different from the kind they portrayed in the past. When was cowardice and betrayal ever heroic?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
rolly 04.15.08 at 3:31 am
This Erap pardon and now, the mutineers, will only embolden scalawags in government to do as they please. After all, they can apply for pardon afer they’ve looted the national treasure, endangered thousands of innocent lives staging a could=have=been civil war amd spent a fortune tracking them down, having them incarcerated, etc. While I am not an advocate of the death penalty, I believe that locking them up might be a deterrent for people who would want to try the same escapades. At least the consequences against the very tempting leadership via a power grab provide some sort of equal balance. Now, that balnce is lost. Aim high no matter how evil for there is no bad c\onsequence.
rowena 04.15.08 at 6:06 pm
yeah, exactly, “When was cowardice and betrayal ever heroic?” i, too, have a hard time understanding why they, and that includes trillanes, of course, are seen as heroes. oh, well, i don’t want to understand it in the first place. we need more teeth in our law. they need to be punished as much as gloria and erap needs to be punished as well. the philippines has totally redefined pardon. tsk, tsk…the country is miserable.
Connie Veneracion 04.15.08 at 6:07 pm
Hay, such is life in the Philippines. Thing that irks me most is why some shitholes insist that it is humanitarian to forgive these criminals.