Closure

Thus did it become fortuitous that when he delivered his privilege speech last Tuesday in the halls of the Senate, two prominent ladies were present. President Corazon C. Aquino, the most admired living president of the republic, proclaimed as a living Asian heroine, was in the gallery. So was Mrs. Editha Burgos, widow of the founder of this newspaper, Jose Burgos, who dared light candles in the night of authoritarianism, who was with Cory Aquino because four months ago, her son Jonas had joined the desaparecidos of the Arroyo regime.

In the case of Burgos, her son had been kidnapped, apparently by elements of the intelligence community, or the military, or some other sinister operators, because they had suspected him of being an "NPA". She has courageously persevered in search of her son, moving from one agency to another of a government increasingly insensitive to violations of human rights.

In the case of Cory, her husband was kidnapped by agents of the dictator’s military, led by sidestairs to a waiting van parked in the tarmac, where he was to meet a bullet that exploded in his cranium. That was 24 years ago.

Cory had become president by popular acclamation, following a civilian-backed military uprising that came on the heels of perceived massive cheating in the snap polls of 1986.

You would have thought that after our soldiers and our people deposed a cheat in those elections, never again would we countenance the stealing of our sovereign vote. That was not to be.

You would have thought that Cory’s presidency would be able to ferret out the truth behind the assassination of her husband, the beloved martyr of contemporary Philippine democracy. To this day, the mastermind or masterminds have yet to be identified. Meanwhile, languishing behind bars for an entire generation now are lowly officers who claim not to know who the master culprit is, or was.

Thus, when Ninoy’s son Noynoy stood before the Senate of his peers, he was decrying the loss of human rights under Marcos, where his father and family were the symbols of repression, and now, under Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, where Jonas Burgos has become its face.

Both widows whom true justice had thus far eluded were in the Senate to listen to Ninoy’s son. Both have found no closure, and in the case of Mrs. Burgos, it has been continuing torture most excruciating.

They listened to Lacson present one of the eavesdroppers in the most controversial Hello Garci conversations where the voice of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Virgilio Garcillano were caught conspiring to ensure the former’s electoral coronation. This was the person who purloined the master tapes of those indecent conversations. This was the person who could not speak out the truth because his family was shanghaied from Kidapawan by elements of the military, and kept in the basement of the official quarters of no less than the AFP chief in Camp Aguinaldo itself. Now he has come out, already a civilian, to tell the people the tale of the tapes.

Short-sighted people want us to just forget these things and move on. They look at Hello Garci as a "minor" blip in their otherwise miserable lives, and would just want to inch ahead, mind their own business. They think that by mentally blotting out truth in the form of bad news, they could escape the toll it takes upon the national agenda, upon the nation’s soul.

Closure, or the lack of any. There has been no closure on Ninoy’s murder. So the killings go on, which have made our nation in the eyes of the world one of the most dangerous places for journalists, for activists, and just about anybody who displeases the powers that be.

There has been no closure on case after case of corruption most gross. Has any smuggler of worth been punished? No, but cars are smashed for show. Joc Joc Bolante languishes or perhaps enjoys his billet at Kenosha County Jail in Wisconsin. But will there be closure to the wanton waste of public funds engineered by his greedy creativity? The ZTE broadband deal, by whatever calculus of economic value, or whatever measure of good governance, fails to impress the public other than another expedition into the world of maximum greed. But the evil go unpunished, because we never insist on proper closure.

There was dagdag-bawas in 1995, and then again in 1998, and in 2001. But in 2004, it was as indecent as when Marcos stole the snap elections. In 1986, the cheating became catalyst for a revolt; in 2004, it became catalyst for lying and cheating and stealing most gross. And the silence of those who insist on keeping away bad news, and regale themselves instead with the paean of moving on.

The miserable story of our lives. We are like zombies moving on, not knowing where our steps will take us, our eyes transfixed in clueless glaze, manipulated by masters of evil because we have lost our souls.