ANTONIO V. FIGUEROA FAST

Davao media used to call him ‘Tatay,’ a term of endearment used to appease than it was to respect him. In the words of some scribes and pundits, he was an Idi Amin copycat, a den-igrating reference of the Ugandan dictator who was deposed in 1979 for his extreme tyranny. To the activists and victims of the Marcos military rule, he was the epitome of a human rights violator. Through it all, he was nonchalant of the negative impressions hurled against him.

On one occasion, while drinking his Johnny Walker Black Label at the lobby of Cuison Hotel (now a medical center along Bajada), Region 11 commander Brig. Gen. Alfredo S. Olano, in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, was interviewed by Pamela G. Hollie of the New York Times in 1982.

He was crooning with the hotel band the 1945 song ‘Autumn Leaves’ and segued into the 1934 ballad ‘Blue Moon’ before leaving his table for the interview to the loud applause of the junior officers escorting him.

Jokingly, Gen. Olano told the journalist that he was “notorious’ and that everybody be-lieved him to be another Idi Amin. As the regional commander of the Philippine Constabu-lary (PC), he was open to taking responsibility for the involuntary relocation of farmers, a declaration that earned him the outrage of clerics, lawyers, and human rights activists.

In a February 26, 1982, story (‘Army’s Treatment of Filipino Civilians Criticized’), Hollie paraphrased the general: “To stem increases in the activity of the insurgent New People’s Army, the military… felt it necessary to move materials is a process that passes through our government printing office.

If it cannot be done, they are allowed to seek private printers and provided that the transaction is not disadvantageous to the government, the deal pushes through.

We are not aware if the PSA has hired a private printer to do the job of printing 100 million or more NIDs for the entire Philippine population.

It appears that this is indeed an enormous task for one solo printer to finish the job.

So if this appears herculean, why not subdivide the printing job among ten or more printers with the uniformed PSA specifications so that the issuance of the NID meets their own self-imposed deadline?

A sense of urgency must be instilled in all government offices so that the lackadaisical attitude that has been the decades-old reflection in

DAVAO’S SINGING ‘IDI AMIN’

farmers living in ‘’sensitive areas’’ into strategic settlements or hamlets to protect them from the Communist rebels and to keep them out of the fighting. There are about 100,000 people living in at least 35 such strategic settlements in Mindanao.” Hamletting is not original to the Philippines. The action started in Malaya in the 1950s and repeated in South Vietnam in the 1960s. Domestically, it drew a forceful rebuke from the human rights commission of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) which was clamoring for the stoppage of hamletting and compensating the people affected by the rude military ac-tion.

The abusive treatment of farmers in Davao even after martial law was lifted in January 1981, continued despite denials. Reports of military manipulations, in- cluding the torture of arbitrarily detained suspected subversives, piled up and these attracted the attention of Am-nesty International and the American embassy in Manila.

Based on the government claims at the time, the number of guerrillas comprising the New People’s Army (NPA), the communist military wing, was estimated at 2,500.

‘To eliminate the dissidents,” the article stated, “the Government appears to have greatly increased garrisons, patrols, arrests and, according to critics, abuses of personal and property rights. Around Davao, there is much talk of the ‘lost command’ a mysterious paramilitary unit that has been accused of extreme brutality. The government, though, denied such a group existed.

To create a façade and the bureaucracy can be overcome. give the impression of moral victory on the part of the military, the government even claimed that thousands of insurgents had returned to the fold of law but through a subtle military request of inviting farmers from upland regions to pledge allegiance to the state. When they obliged, they were later told that the oath-taking was actually ‘a wholesale surrender ceremony’ which the authorities shared with the press as ‘a mass sur-render.’

As PBBM travels abroad to make his sales pitch to foreign investors and businessmen and encourage them to look into the potentials of investing in our economy, his efforts to push this country forward and elevate the Pinoys’ economic status may all go to waste if this stagnant bureaucratic attitude remains.

The NID is a prime example of a simple project to determine the efficiency of a government agency.

Three years is too long a waiting time, if you know what I mean.

The PSA seems to be dragging its feet and may have not heard (or read) the order of the President to fast track the NID.

I advise them to go to an ophthalmologist to check their vision or to an ear doctor to clear their wax. (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) GOD BLESS THE PHILIPPINES!

Because the surrender led to hamletting, the farmlands were abandoned.

Gen. Olano, apparently caught in a subject that was uneasy and controversial, excused politely himself from the interview and proceeded to join his colleagues, took the microphone, and sang Frank Sinatra’s 1969 global hit titled ‘My Way’ to the accompaniment of the band.