Of heroes and villains

I’m not sure if it’s repugnance or sheer hate I feel seeing military men in a slow march pass.

As a struggling sportswriter, I take it with joy covering momentous gatherings like the athletes’ parades in the Olympics, the Asian Games or the Sea Games. These are sporting fiestas, where the big countries’ sporting greats can be seen, and where ugly comparisons between us and them often become after parade conversations.

But a military hearse is like directly seeing empty boots in formation as dead soldiers are honored for their heroism in wars. We don’t talk about this after, it is better forgotten.

But Monday was a scene that makes unforgettable nightmares.

There were the widows, howling their grief in front of television crews, their arms clutching photographs of their dead husbands and brothers and sons, like they were recreating a scene once owned by the grieving mothers of Argentina’s Plaza de Mayo. They were mourning their loss.

Their husbands, brothers and sons were recently killed in a gun clash with the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu. There were seven dead, five of them mutilated as the Sayyafs crow about their victory, or in a lesser sense (or nonsense), simply avenged their own dead.

How brutal could wars become, and this is war in its most physical sense and meaning. We could not have touched them, or heard them, but we saw them cry, we saw them howl in pain over the loss of a loved one. We don’t know any of them, but we can relate for whatever reason simply because their loss has lots of meanings to us.

Officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) could only salve their pain by announcing possible promotions, albeit posthumously. Now, if it can be done also to a great actor who could have become the country’s president had he not been robbed of his chance by somebody who looks like Gloria Arroyo.

It could not replace their loss, but that is what soldiers’ widows get. They may be meaningless to some, but medals and certificates and possibly cash grants could be meaningful to most recipients, especially when they were paid for in blood by their loved ones.

And oh, they received a handshake, and what appeared to be a sincere message of condolences from President Noynoy Aquino, who visited the wake.

But as these soldiers will be laid to final rest, their living peers have been tainted by another accusation of torture from one whom they suspected as a Sayyaf operative.

They mauled him. They soaked him in kerosene and burned parts of his body. And when they could not fish any information from the nameless victim, they turned him over to the Philippine National Police (PNP), before he decided to tell all.

Yet, his image has become a rallying figure for many other Sayyaf warriors. He could become an example of military atrocities that would serve as bait to many other adventurous youth who may join Abu Sayyaf in the future. And there could be more of him.

With one such image, whatever points the AFP may have earned in exposing Sayyaf’s own atrocities against government combatants could be erased by one stupid act by their own peers.

And then this call came late Monday, from a university staff who volunteered information to expose yet another supposed military atrocity, this time in Sarangani, General Santos City, hometown of our living sporting hero Manny Pacquiao.

The caller claimed members of the 73rd Infantry Battalion are harassing the operations of a learning center catering to children of the B’laan tribe aged 15-years and below so that these B’laan kids would not learn to read and write and possibly discern and analyze their future.

She said soldiers are accusing teachers and staff serving the B’laan community as communist sympathizers. And because of this, the school was not able to hold its graduation rites last march, despite the presence of two sisters from the Benedictine Order.

The Tribune source, however, suspects the military harassment isn’t really aimed at flushing communists and their supporters out of the secluded Sarangani area, but is actually part of an operation to clear the vicinity of people who might oppose a mining operation whose investors have reportedly secured their license to mine from GMA, who else?

“The mining operation is now in ‘stage two.’ And possibly, the 73rd IB does not want the B’laan tribe to oppose the operation in their area,” the Tribune source said.

A group has reported the cases of harassment this B’laan tribe has reportedly been receiving from the military to Human Rights Commissioner Etta Rosales. But some of them suspect they may be last in Rosales’ priorities as they claimed she is of a different political stripe.

They also first sought to bring the matter to Pacquiao. But the honorable congressman from Sarangani is more focused on his next fight with Juan Manuel Marquez, perhaps he does not realize he has chosen to have this other role in life.

But I could be as confused as Pacquiao. There are heroes and villains everywhere, I might stick my neck out for the Federers and the Williamses in any sporting march than hear any of these.

But then, there was one march I could recall. That of the Grand Old Man Chino Roces pulling a plastic tank at the end of Ferdinand Marcos’ military parade one year at the waning of martial law. It’s a reminder that we all have to make a choice. And our heroes and villains could come from any side.

Which one? Take your pick.