Of chicken bones, human rights

Herbie Gomez /

I WOULD be prudent in handling the complaint against the developer of Primavera Residences in uptown Cagayan de Oro if I were in the shoes of Vice Mayor Kikang Uy and Councilor Ian Mark Nacaya. The firm, Italpinas Development Corp., has invested a lot in Cagayan de Oro and has continued to do so because the developer believes in the city’s potentials. Our politicians can reciprocate the investor’s gesture by making sure that the complaint isn’t a dud or that they aren’t taken in for a ride by a few with some hidden agenda who want things to be blown out of proportions.

Of course, it becomes public concern — and the city council’s — if homeowners complain that they have been ripped off. But the problem with this is when politicians discover that the complaint is nothing but a big joke only after they have finished taking liberties with the corporate reputation of a developer.

Take the case of Primavera. The building in uptown Cagayan de Oro has been turned over to the homeowners’ association as early as 2013, and that means that all the concerns on maintenance have been the responsibility of the organization since then.

It turned out that the complaint about clogged toilets that Nacaya brought to the public’s attention cannot be blamed on the developer. The clogging, I just learned, was a result of — hold your breath! — chicken bones and what-have-you that were rammed down the pipes not by the developer but, obviously, by one of the condominium occupants who now want the entire homeowners’ group to shoulder the costs of his clumsiness. Pfft. That makes the Primavera brouhaha simply ridiculous.

We don’t want to drive investors away from Cagayan de Oro just because some chicken lover does not know the place for his chicken bones, do we?

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I am baffled over the seeming inability of many citizens, the schooled included, to grasp the basic concept of human rights and to understand that a society that has morphed into an angry mob is treading on very dangerous grounds as it begins to toy with the idea that such rights don’t apply to all Homo sapiens. The problem with that is that the very same people who decided to discard the rules would no longer be in the position to invoke the same rights when it is their turn to be burned at the stake no matter how they cry innocent because no one would be listening.

I gloat over this goof of an excessively vocal and rabid advocate of extrajudicial killings who has never volunteered to hand over his own son to Dirty Harry when he has, time and again, ranted about his family’s black sheep for being a liability to him and society. Human rights and rules don’t apply to other people’s children but only to him and his child? What standard and tomfoolery is this?

I get it when the angry mob calls for the abolition of the Commission on Human Rights. I mean, exactly how many of these goofballs have actually bothered to read the Constitution? All these talk about getting rid of the CHR betray their ignorance. You see, the CHR is an independent constitutional body created to investigate all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights. Since it was created under the 1987 Constitution, it cannot be abolished just like that by any Tom, Dick and Harry who sees it as an obstruction. The Commission is there for a reason and that is, to make sure that those in government follow rules and don’t abuse their powers. Just like the Office of the Ombudsman, it is there to provide the necessary checks and balance. In other words, the CHR is part of government. And so I get it because these loud and lazy ignoramuses never bothered to read the Constitution, and that explains why they are mouthing a lot of nonsense. Simply put, you have to throw away the Constitution first.

Where was the CHR when your neighbor was gangaped? Wrong premise, fathead. The question should be, “Where was the police?” You see, criminal law enforcement is the job of the police, not CHR’s. But it is the job of the Commission to make sure that law enforcers arrest and bring to court the real perpetrators, that rules of engagement are followed, and that they don’t plant evidence against you or your sons and turn you into fall guys just because the victim is your neighbor or because you look and smell like a bunch of rapists. Imagine yourself being implicated in the gangape and being arrested for the simple reason that you have a record of wrecking your own family when you foolishly cohabited with a woman of illepute, an “evidence” of your tendency to allow your urges to go wild. That’s unfair? Now you’re complaining, bozo.

It is neither the fault of the CHR nor private individuals or groups advocating human rights protection that crimes are being committed left and right. To blame them for the surging crime rate over the police’s failure to prevent crime from being committed or to solve the cases the right way is barking up the wrong tree. The bloodlust that we are seeing now is not the result of human rights advocacy but of lousy police work, double standard, and a defective criminal justice system that failed to make crime a highisk undertaking.

Unable to take the bull by the horns and fix the problem in the system, the government and its police turned the CHR and human rights monitors into scapegoats, providing a bloodthirsty throng a whipping boy while shortcuts are made and hailed. That is not justice in the context of 21st century civil society but many generations backwards, back in the day when Pontius Pilate surrendered reason to popular public demand that an innocent man be nailed to the cross. His only fault (if that was a fault) was to offend religious sensibilities. (I have some questions about the historicity of that story but, somehow, you get the idea.)

Vox populi, vox Dei (The voice of the people is the voice of God)? In this context, that is a lot of bull@#%t. Pastilan.

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Oversight: One word in the first paragraph of my column last week was a spoiler. The paragraph should have read: “There are times when the only way a story teller can connect the dots is to use important information from people, highly placed and with insider information, who agree to speak on condition of anonymity. This is an acceptable but not really an encouraged practice in journalism.” The word “acceptable” in the second sentence was mistakenly written and printed as “unacceptable.” Oops, my mistake. Apologies.