Far From Neutral Notions - Philippine politics, culture and stuff

A just city should favour justice and the just, hate tyranny and injustice, and give them both their just desserts. ~ al-Farabi, The Dictionary of Islam vol. IV

“Justice” Secretary Raul Gonzales has long been one of my personal pet peeves - even back when he was still an Iloilo Congressman trying to evict UP from its Iloilo City campus. Man’s man (ahh yes the beauty of hidden meanings ) that he is, Mon Tulfo admires Gonzales’ guts for voicing out his opinions on controversial issues like allowing the US custody of convicted rapist Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, but testicular fortitude is no excuse for being, at best, totally out of touch, and at worst, selling us out. But hey, that’s Tulfo for you. <sarcasm>I mean, Hitler, Stalin and Mao took very controversial stands as well, didn’t they? Yep, very vocal people, those three. And I remember reading that Mao had this thing for twelve-year-old virgins, too. I daresay it takes a lot of guts to do that</sarcasm>.

And just how, exactly, is kowtowing to US pressure being brave? Brave would have been telling the US just where we want them to collectively shove it. Brave would have been standing up for the little guy - us - rather than nipping at the heels of Uncle Sam. Brave would have been, oh I don’t know, maybe remembering what the Justice in Justice Secretary meant.

Whom do you serve, Mister Secretary? Whose “justice” do you look out for? You can say that “Nichole” had it coming — and yes, Subic is hardly the place for good clean fun — but dammit, she’s one of ours, and she was violated. She may or may have not led those Marines on, but no matter how Tulfo might posture, nobody deserves to be treated like that.

But this kind of behavior is precisely the reason why some American servicemen (among many others) think they can just come here and have their way with us and get away with it. I mean, hey, apparently our own Department of “Justice” holds the US-RP ties to be more important. This kind of thing will happen again, because nobody calls the US to task about the behavior of her soldiers. Does anyone even talk about what they did to POWs in Iraq anymore? Letting the US have custody of Smith is tantamount to a slap on the wrist. Wink wink, try to be more careful next time.

What gives?! Make no mistake, there will be a next time, because not holding the US accountable is tacit approval. So no, Mister Tulfo, Secretary Gonzales is not a brave man. A brave man would shout: Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus! at the top of his lungs. Let justice be done, even should the world perish! Let justice be done, even should US-RP relations sour. And if Americans only believed half of what some of their great thinkers and leaders stood for, they would agree, for was it not Martin Luther King who once said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?

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