Herbie Gomez
SEN. Alan Peter Cayetano to Vice President Leni Lobredo: “Stop campaigning for the presidency.”
I swear that Sen. Cayetano could have pulled this off and scored a point had we forgotten that about a year before his decision to run for vice president in the May elections, he went public with his presidential ambition, and categorically stated on national TV that there was no way he’d ever slide down to the vice presidential race.
This early, Robredo may have already set her eyes on the presidency but she’s not saying it yet. But Cayetano? Well, we can safely say that he has long been salivating on the presidency.
And so, Cayetano was actually attacking himself.
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All of a sudden, some activists are back to being a human rights advocates. But there are stickers on their foreheads that say they advocated the exact opposite of what human rights advocates stood for earlier this year.
Years from now, when Filipinos commemorate this period of infamy in Philippine history, these activists should not commit the mistake of participating. They are collaborators. There’s blood on their hands and smeared across their faces. These people should be asking themselves if they have been consistent in their advocacy because only those who have never compromised on human rights have the moral high ground.
Of course, there were those who were really uncompromising when it comes to human rights--then and now. That explains the position they took in the elections. That is what consistency is all about. And, of course, there were others whose position withered in May, and it continues to wither until now. Had it not withered, they wouldn’t be behind someone who has long been a poster boy for extrajudicial killings. That is something they wouldn’t be able to justify.
Theirs is actually a Jekyll-and-Hyde group. One moment, they say they are against extrajudicial killings; the next, they sleep with the very group that has repeatedly mocked human rights principles, and has, in fact, threatened to include human rights advocates in its abhorrent and morally bankrupt campaign. Pastilan.
