editorials, Page 5

In the minds of the people who have known Sherwin as a person, his recent arrest on charges of rebellion, based on four alleged instances of crimes supposedly involving him is simply thrown out, dismissed, or condemned as lies or malicious fabrications. What was dealt him is easily construed as it is factual – the curtailment of the freedom of expression, the denial of his Bill of Rights not only for him as a writer but for other journalists, for activists and for all Filipino citizens especially in Northern Luzon.

Today, December 10, is the International Human Rights Day (IHRD). This is the day that the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1948 adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ever since has been commemorated annually by countries the world over.

On this day (November 23) eight years ago, a crime that set new records in vileness was committed on a hilltop in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman, Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

Some 35 years ago, among the jokes shared then were parallelisms made of a supposed couple-dictator in South America or the fascist Hitler with our own “conjugal dictatorship” who also would have rewritten history the way they would have wanted it, and not the way people carved it.

When gentlemen, leaders agree on things but cannot keep their word, they are no gentlemen nor leaders, they are but men without honor.