By KATHLEEN T. OKUBO
www.nordis.net

Last Tuesday, December 14, at the CRC hall by the bishop’s house at Baguio Cathedral was a “soft launching” of the book, “ William F. Billy Claver”, a compilation of speeches from 1972 to 1992, “towards genuine implementation of the indigenous peoples rights law.”

Giovan Reyes, the other editor introduced the book in his opening remarks, and I am reprinting here a shortened version to introduce the forthcoming book.

Madame and manang Jane Claver, members of the Claver Family, colleagues in the indigenous peoples movement, friends, ladies and gentlemen: Gawis ay agew ya dagdagup tako am-in. Nan nagapo isnan nateketeken ay lugar – especially the representatives from places and remote communities of CARAGA Region, Mindanao who are here with us today.

As you are perhaps aware, that part of the country is being colonized by large scale extractive mining, nothing will be left of the environment if the Manobo and Mamanwas will be pushed out and their ancestral lands turned into waste land. At any rate, how elating really that people of diverse views and perspectives are gathered today by a common interest – for a book that I believe will resonate long in the future – as an educational tool for our children and our children’s children.

My friends, I’d like to think that in a way, this gathering is some kind of an Editorial Board Meeting or if you like, a meeting of “co-authors” in the sense that the communities where we come from served as the primary sources in which the author himself based much of his reflections.

Being a province-mate and having had the privilege of working under Billy in early 2000, and dwell on such complex concerns that is largely the domain of lawyers, such as the implementation of indigenous rights law, I have no doubt that Billy’s reflections about indigenous peoples, particularly the Igorots, specifically Bontoks and Kalingas whom he dearly loved, form the immediate surrounding material and cultural reality as primary sources of his perceptions and thoughts.

In turn, these perceptions and thoughts formed the bases of his arguments. His statements etched on bond papers will not just be collections with limited circulation, to be lent to researchers, to be misplaced or in danger of getting lost. This time, these statements will find space in pages with assured permanency.

Billy used much of his reflections and statements in defense of ancestral domain and resources for the people. In the process, he was in fact re-orienting deeply ingrained attitudes imposed by western law and jurisprudence, which is ironically the same discipline where he was trained as a lawyer. These deeply ingrained attitudes are described by Judge Richard Posner writing on Friedrich Nietsche’s classic essay “On the Use and Disadvantages of History for Life”. I quote it at length:

”Law is the most historically – oriented, or if you like the most ‘past-dependent’. It venerates tradition, precedent, pedigree, ritual, customs, ancient practices, ancient texts, archaic terminology, maturity, wisdom, seniority, gerontocracy and interpretation conceived of as a method of recovering history. It is suspicious of innovation, discontinuities, ‘paradigm shifts’ and the energy and brashness of youth.”

Posner continued, “these ingrained attitudes are obstacles to anyone who wants to re-orient law in a more pragmatic direction”.

When manong Billy introduced the ancestral domain bill before the 1971 Constitutional Convention to change the American-inspired 1935 constitution, he introduced a radical concept that went against a doctrine imposed for three hundred years under the King of Spain, one hundred years under Americans through an entity called the State and throughout the post-Commonwealth Republic.

He sought to ‘extirpate’ this Regalian Doctrine that gave State powers dominion over ownership of all lands of the public domain. The ruling class at that time did not allow this to pass. The date for the conventions’ adoption of the ancestral domain bill was overlapped by former President Marcos order to his delegates to deliberate on the issue of shifting from presidential to parliamentary form of government. The ancestral domain bill was never taken up – and Marcos would not have permitted it.

What Billy could not achieve in the Constitutional Convention in 1972, was achieved in the 1987 Constitution. The change in administration from Martial Law to Cory Aquino’s liberal democratic politics provided opening for Billy Claver to push the agenda of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, not losing momentum of the mobilization against the Chico Dam Project in the ‘70s and ‘80s.The lobbying by CPA following EDSA 1 was largely responsible for the adoption of constitutional provisions recognizing indigenous peoples rights.

As congressman of the 8th congress from 1987 to 1992, he introduced a bill entitled “An Act Creating the Commission on Indigenous Cultural Communities and Ancestral Domain, Defining its Powers and Functions and Appropriating Funds Therefor”, the forerunner of what is now called the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

Now, the idea of compiling manong Billy’s speeches and putting these into book form traces its roots during that period when the first three years of implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act exposed what many saw was the perversity of the law’s original spirit and intent. With NCIP making wonders for large scale extractive mining, Billy asked, “Where in the implementation of the IPRA law is the sacred responsibility to protect ancestral lands?

This was manong Billy’s question that triggered the idea. We asked him, “what about tracing back your statements as recorded and written and make a compilation of these so that more indigenous peoples could read and learn lesson from such views?” Initially, the idea was something like putting these speeches together as a sourcebook or a “native” reader of sorts.

The speeches are from 1972 up to 1992. On the basic theme of ancestral domain. We may not have collected all speeches he had made, written and delivered but we are sure that the speeches chosen are representative of the span of his work and would still be complete to explicitate his key points in the mainstream campaign for indigenous peoples rights and individual human rights.

We tried as best to keep the wholeness of each speech and to minimize the repeated use of the same prefatory note or explanation, because some speeches were after all presented at different times and to different audiences.

To make the book simple and straightforward, Billy’s name serves as the title of the book. This means the manuscript will likewise be made simple and readable.

Let me now acknowledge the group on whose collective support for this book project was based: Jo Dongail of the Reality of Aid global secretariat; Kathleen T. Okubo, editor of Northern Dispatch Weekly; Professor Julienne R. Dulnuan, of the University of the Philippines Asian Institute of Tourism; Professor Michiyo Y. Reyes, University of the Philippines Asian Center; and Geraldine Fiag-oy, member of the board, Teb-tebba Foundation.

For their unprecedented support and finding common cause endorsing this book: Our gratitude to Vicky Tauli Corpuz, Executive Director of Teb-tebba Foundation for providing a grant for the book’s publication; Abigail B. Anongos and Elvira Taguba, secretary-general and treasurer, respectively, of the Cordillera People’s Alliance and Audrey Beltran of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance, for the archival photos. And Richard Abellon, Jr. for sharing other photos.

Special thanks are due to Mr. Victor Ananayo of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines’ Diocese of Northern Philippines and Ms. Joanna K. Cariño, member, Advisory Council of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, whose information and knowledge about Billy Claver’s service forms Chapter One (1) of the book. # nordis.net

By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

“God is ging to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret.” — Ecclesiastes 12:14

The Vizconde Verdict

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was the desperate cry of the Psalmist (Ps.22:1). It was also Jesus’ cry of agony on the cross (Cf. Mk. 15:34). But also, this was Lauro Vizconde’s painful cry as he heard the verdict of the Supreme Court on the case he has been fighting for in the past 20 years. It was in 1991 when his whole family, his wife Estrilleta and his two daughters Jennifer and Carmela, were brutally killed while he was in the U.S. His daughter Carmela was even raped.

After years of looking for the culprit, Hubert Webb and his gang mates were charged in 1995 for the dastardly crime, arrested and sent to jail. They were convicted in the lower court as well as in the appellate court, until it reached the Supreme Court. Then, last Monday, December 13, the Supreme Court issued its verdict acquitting Hubert Webb and his companions, namely Antonio Lejano, Michael Gatchalian, Hospicio Fernandez, Peter Estrada, and Miguel Rodriguez – all scions of rich, powerful and influential families. Two other members of the group, Joey Filart and Artemio “Dong” Ventura, are still at large. Seven of the Justices favored the acquittal, four against it, and four abstained.

According to the Supreme Court Administrator, Atty. Jose Midas Marquez, the acquittal of Hubert and his companions does not mean that they are innocent; it simply means that the prosecutors were not able to prove beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the accused.

The primary evidences in the crime scene were burned by Gerardo Biong, the police officer who came first to investigate the case. Biong, known to be close to the Webbs, was charged, convicted, and served his sentence for destroying the evidences. He was released recently few days before the Supreme Court decision on Webb and the others came out. The semen taken from Carmela’s – strong evidence that is supposed to be with the NBI – is nowhere to be found. The justices claimed that they found loopholes in the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness Jessica Alfaro.

There is a principle among the Supreme Court justices that it is better to free a convicted criminal than to send an innocent person to jail. Apparently, this is the principle the justices applied to the Vizconde case. In short, Hubert and his gang mates were acquitted not because they were innocent but because of legal technicalities.

Lauro Vizconde believes though that money has changed hands. This was what he feared all along: that he could not get justice from the Supreme Court because of money and influence of the Webbs. As a matter of fact, one of the Supreme Court justices, Justice Carpio, is related to the Webbs and was their lawyer in the case before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. Lauro Vizconde accused Justice Carpio of influencing the other members of the Supreme Court, something which the Court Administrator, Atty. Marquez, denied.

Leave it to God

“Where else can we seek justice?” asked Lauro Vizconde. Indeed, where else can we seek justice if the Supreme Court justices could not give it to us? Is there any alternative? Some are saying we cannot do anything anymore; we just accept the court’s decision. However, Secretary de Lima of the Justice Department and Atty. Acosta of the Public Attorney’s Office are saying that there are still legal remedies. We can still reinvestigate the case; we can still file a motion for reconsideration. But the Vizcondes desperately say,“We’ll just leave it to God.” Nevertheless, President Aquino ordered the reinvestigation of the case.

There are those who take the law into their hands when the courts could not give them the justice they are seeking. This option also came to Lauro Vizconde according to him, but some people prevailed upon him, and so, he kept his faith in the justice system. One of the reasons why the tit-for-tat principle was developed in the Old Testament is because of the elusiveness of justice in the prevailing system. The system favored the rich and powerful. The tit-for-tat, therefore, served as a corrective measure.

There is however a very strong faith tradition in the Scriptures, especially in the prophetic and wisdom writings, claiming that God gives justice to the oppressed. Prophet Amos said to the people of his day, “You are doomed, you that twist justice and cheat people out of their rights” (Amos 5:7). Prophet Amos believed that God will do something in the fullness of time so that a person reaps what he planted. Apostle Paul also echoed this in his letter to the Galatians: “Do not deceive yourselves; no one makes a fool of God. You will reap exactly what you plant” (Gal. 6:7).

When the Vizcondes said, “Leave it to God”, they are simply saying that they have already done the best they could to obtain justice but still justice seemed to be elusive; God will now do the rest.

God as the Final Judge

The Supreme Court justices are not gods and goddesses. They are also human beings, like us, subject to human limitations. Surely, they have their own values, interests and biases, even if they claim to be objective in their judgment. Yet they are to be the supreme and ultimate judges in our land. But who will save us from their inequities? Who will save us from their evil judgment? Who will judge the Supreme Court justices? Apparently, there is none on earth. People in congress are talking about impeachment for the Supreme Court justices. But this move has never materialized.

The Book of Ecclesiastes talks about the meaninglessness of life. The writer says, “Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless” (Eccl. 8:14). However, in the end the writer concludes, “God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret”(Eccl. 12:14).

In the fullness of time, God is going to judge all of us, including the Supreme Court justices. In the final analysis, it is only before God’s judgment throne that we can truly obtain perfect justice. # nordis.net