August 25, 2006 · Posted in: Human Rights
Beltran: I am a national democrat, not a communist
CRISPIN Beltran doesn’t look like he belongs inside a hospital.
![Anakpawis partylist Rep. Crispin Beltran [photo by Dabet Castañeda]](http://www.pcij.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/imported/wp-images/ka-bel2.jpg)
He has spent six months detained in hospitals — the Philippine National Police (PNP) General Hospital and the Philippine Heart Center, yet he sits easily in the chair next to his bed. Dressed in a red kamisa de chino and baseball cap over blue and white hospital pants, the 73-year-old Anakpawis Partylist Representative seems to be perfectly healthy.
When I tell him this, he begins to laugh. “Actually, marami akong sakit (Actually, I have a lot of illnesses).”
His doctors have just discovered that he has chronic anemia, and they are worried that it could develop into leukemia. He has an injection every two days, and another one every week. On top of this, he has cardiovascular hypertension, and lingering ailments from a stroke he suffered in July 2005.
Still, he can’t wait to get out of the hospital. “Masyado akong naiinip dahil masyado naman yatang sobra yung buwan (I am getting impatient because [being detained for] months seems too long).” At the very least, he would like to attend Congress’s last 100 session days. But he hopes to have a “clean bill” when it comes to the three cases of rebellion that have been filed against him.
“Ang mga abogado namin, ang tingin nila wala akong kaso as charged (My lawyers don’t think there’s a valid case),” he says. The first judge who presided over his trial inhibited herself from the case, as did the next two judges.
The Supreme Court has temporarily stopped the Department of Justice from prosecuting the Batasan 5’s second rebellion case. Beltran is still waiting for its decision on his case.
One of his co-accused, Phillip Limjoco, has disappeared. Another, Sotero Llamas, is dead.
“Yung pagdemanda sa amin, parang death warrant yun (The cases filed against us were like death warrants),” Beltran says. He feels uneasy that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo condemns political killing while praising Gen. Jovito Palparan, the so-called “butcher” of militant leaders, in the same breath.
“Hindi ako naniniwala na itong (I don’t believe that the) Melo commission will do something good for the promotion of justice,” he adds. National Bureau of Investigation Director Nestor Mantaring and Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño are conspiring with the government to hide the truth, according to Beltran.
“Hindi ba si Chief Prosecutor Zuño and pumirma ng aking pagkakakulong na iligal, walang warrant at arbitrary ang detention (Didn’t Chief Prosecutor Zuño sign my illegal imprisonment and arbitrary detainment without a warrant?) How can he help?”
Beltran and his lawyers are preparing to file a criminal case against Zuño and some officials of the PNP.
He does not trust them, nor does he trust the president, who, he says in the words of former vice president Teofisto Guingona, used the impeachment proceedings to “cover up her high crimes.”
Beltran believes that the people have learned their lesson. In the upcoming May elections, he predicts that people will ask whether or not solons supported the president in the impeachment proceedings, and they will vote representatives who will easily oust the president before her term ends in 2010.
Even now, external pressure is increasing from groups such as the Amnesty International and International Parliamentary Union for the president to control attacks on democracy such as the killing of activists and journalists, according to Beltran.
He firmly denies that he is a communist, saying that he is not even qualified to be a socialist because he believes in private property and that people must work for their livelihood.
“What we are fighting for in the long run is for the Philippines to have peace, to have democracy, to respect human rights and to have social justice. That is under nationalism and democracy. I am a national democrat.”
1 Response to Beltran: I am a national democrat, not a communist
freewheel
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Unfortunate as it is, Mr. Beltran, no matter how you explain yourself, some people simply do not respect you– a genuine member of the working class.
Maybe, had you been a lawyer yourself, political equation would have been different.
See, our country has this bizarre fascination for titles; lawyer, this-that, engineer, he-she, doctor, them-they, etc, etc. Thus, if a politico whose only known trade is to cut all the trees in a pristine forest, he instantly becomes a logger-businessman– a term that commands respect, or even fear (undeservingly) in and outside the halls of Congress.
A lawyer, whose only claim to fame is to head a quasi-government construction firm and headed it to bankruptcy and left trail of debts that became one of the nation’s foreign debt, is given the seat of being a Speaker of the House.
Samantala, in your case, a worker who toiled in a factory for decades; helped organized the workers to become responsible members of a society, aspired to represent your peers in a legislative body and given a nod by the voters to be their voice, nationally–from Batanes to Sulu, is denied to grace a seat.
Not too many people recall it now; as lessons of history is nothing to be cared of, in this part of the world, but the Great Plebeian Andres Bonifacio, a revolutionary hero, was too denied a seat in the Malolos Congress.
His peers mostly lawyers, traders and landowners jeered him to no end–for his being a factory worker and Katipunan organizer.
A hundred years since has passed, but the society to which you and I belong hasn’t really progressed that much, eh? Or is it possible that the country had even retrogressed since then?
While other progressive countries everywhere produces leaders coming from the ranks of workers, humanists, activists; ours is NOT only continously run by landlords, lawyers, traders but an avenue is now also open to butchers, jokers (of sick kind), swindlers, and loggers, too? Mind you, these people carries with them titles!
Thus, to my mind, do not explain yourself too much –for no matter how hard you do, your critics will never tire themselves to attach labels on you. Remember, you are a worker and in their sick minds– a marked man.
Your supporters, sympathizers, and friends would rather hear from you vision of a just society, on basis of termination of armed rebellion in the countrysides, on sustainable economic development, and on the role of workers and farmers in the nation building.
On a personal note, I hope you regain back your health. Your presence in the House of Thieves is sorely needed not to lend credence to the thieving, but hopefully to put an end to it– or help put an end to the existence of the house itself.