In a recent interview with VERITAS, Capt. Rex Robles (PN) says he can’t understand why civilians can’t be forgiving toward military men who committed atrocities.

If he, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, and Gen. Fidel Ramos can be forgiving towards "all the people who tried to kill us -- Tadiar and Brawner -- . . . can the others not forgive whatever we did in the past?

Captain Robles’ analogy is false. It equates murder with attempted murder. It sees not difference between life and death.

1. General Tadiar’s march-that-never-reached-the-Camp-Crame-mutineers is not quite the same thing as the slaughter of rebellious Muslim trainees in the Jabuidah case.

2. The never-implemented mortar barrage on Camp Crame is a far cry from the naval bombardment that leveled Jolo.

3. The strafing-that-never-was is not equivalent to the honest-to-goodness strafing of villages in the Cordilleras or the use of napalm in Mindanao.

4. If General Tadiar and his marines had engaged in a gun-battle between Minister Enrile and then-president Marcos and the radio and face-to-face appeals to General Tadiar can in no way be compared with the interrogations conducted by military men in various camps ??????

TWO PARAGRAPHS ARE ILLEGIBLE

Since when are ???? decide what his punishment should be or the appropriate restitution should be?

Captain Robles keeps on reminding us, "We have already offered our lives." And he deplores the fact that people seem to be saying, "No, you cannot atone because you have sinned too much."

No, Captain Robles. We are not saying that you can’t atone. What we are saying is that the atonement you’re offering just isn’t good enough.

The military may have helped us get rid of President Marcos. But even if we achieve the kind of country we want to have, the widows will still be widows, the orphans will still be orphans, the bodies and minds that have been broken over the years will not be made while, the years wasted in prison or on the run will have been lost forever.

How shall, how can, the military make restitution?

Beyond making vague noises about good deeds in the future, Captain Robles does not care to say.

But in the meantime, Minister Enrile, General Ramos, Captain Robles, and his fellow-reformists seem to be operating on the assumption that the people’s gratitude toward the reformists is transferable: they are forgiving, in the name of the people, the crimes committed by their brother-officers.

They are allowing those generals who abused their power (who engaged in crimes like carnapping, enriched themselves, catered to the whims of the first Family, or terrorized civilians) to fade into an honorable and well-paid (at our expense) retirement.

If the reformists were to forgive, for example, General Tadiar and his men, that is their privilege. But the reformists may forgive only those crimes committed against them. The reformists’ absolution does not, cannot, carry with it the forgiveness of the many who have suffered at the hands of General Tadiar and his troops.

Obviously, Captain Robles feels that the fact that he risked his life empowers him to forgive a brother-officer who has committed murder or worse . . . . and absolve him of any obligation of restitution to his victims.

Captain, say that with a straight face to the widows and the orphans your brother-officer has created!
 
 

QUIRINO TORRES