I wish everyone read this personal account of Ina Alleco R. Silverio, the wife of arrested environmental scientist Kim Gargar. It shames me to live in a society that still tolerates this kind of wrongdoing. I do not know Kim and his wife, but I do know that the Center for Environmental Concerns is as legitimate as any of the environmental organizations I have worked with. I have also been in the business of human rights lawyering for three decades now and I see red-baiting and set-ups when it happens. I hope my students in the military and the police and the justice system read this as well and help out. See excerpts below of Inas account: By all accounts, Kim is a civilian. He is an academic, a researcher and a scientist. From first grade to the time he graduated magna cum laude in physics, he has done nothing but excel in academic pursuits. He could have focused his energies on getting rich, but instead he chose to be a scientist with a social conscience; instead of working for some transnational company, he chose to teach. Instead of staying in the Netherlands where he was a scholar from January 2009 to December 2012, he decided to return to the Philippines and work for the Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC), a non-governmental organization that champions the cause of a sustainable environment for the Filipino people. Kim’s work in Mindanao was made possible through the coordination between the CEC and its affiliate PANALIPDAN-Southern Mindanao. Kim’s expertise on research and science was expected to make the project research successful and useful as it will help in plans and efforts to rehabilitate of communities devastated by Typhoon Pablo. It’s hard to put into words the outrage and indignation I felt when I learned how the military had forced Kim to make a false confession that he was a member of the NPA. Hungry, cold, sleep-deprived with a broken leg and a possible concussion, Kim was surrounded by at least 15 soldiers in full-battle gear and forced to say that he was an NPA member. The military arranged various paraphernalia – an M-16 rifle, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), blasting caps, and all other materials that he could not describe and shot a video of him saying that he was NPA. There he was, my husband who’s afraid of firecrackers, a man so clumsy that one time when I was a guest on Manolo Quezon’s old ANC show “The Explainer” he almost knocked down two six-feet tall studio lamps, there he was accused of carrying and firing a gun, handling land mines, murdering civilians. I don’t know how else to argue that Kim is an ordinary civilian (and a brilliant scientific mind). Do I present our marriage certificate that proves that the ceremony was officiated by no less than House Speaker Sonny Belmonte when he was still mayor of Quezon City in May 2005? Do I show the passport that shows that he arrived in the country only on January 2, 2013 when the AFP alleges that he has been in the boondocks with the NPA since 2012? Should I write that he is sorry for having missed the developments in the plot of My Husband’s Lover which he was really interested in when it debuted in May just before he left for Mindanao? I really don’t know. But what I do know is that the soldiers and military officials who arrested him and violated his human rights while breaking many other provisions of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) protecting civilians are lying through their teeth. What was he doing in the forest and alone? Is it really so hard to accept the truth that he was doing research? A fisherman casts his net at 3 am far out into the sea, and no one questions him. Kim — a scientist just like Dr. Leonard Co before him — was in the forest documenting nocturnal habits of wildlife, and automatically he is an NPA, a legitimate target and no questions asked. Even if he was able to explain all about circadian clocks, climate change effects, soil erosion caused by mining etc., etc., the soldiers wouldn’t have paid attention. Truly, to be a patriotic scientist in this country is a thankless job. So now, with all the calmness and dignity I can muster, I demand on our five-year old daughter’s behalf that the Aquino government release my husband, political detainee and scientist Kim Gargar from prison and dismiss all the ridiculous charges against him. Arresting innocent civilians does nothing to improve the image of this government in the eyes of the international human rights community and the rest of the world. The last time he was home with our daughter was in early June. They drew marine animals, folded paper cranes and ate ice cream. When he told her goodbye, he explained that he was again leaving for work and that he would be home in time for Christmas and they would watch animated films all day in his laptop. Now, four months later, Kim is in jail, her daughter is missing him, and I don’t know what happened to his laptop. I haven’t told our daughter where her father really is. As far as she knows, he is still in Holland, that cold far-away country where she herself lived for a time with both her parents. While I have already started bit by bit to explain to her the nature of Philippine society and how injustice is suffered by the poor on a minute-by-minute basis in this country, I am unable to begin to tell her that her own father is a victim of the same unjust system. The way she also is a victim, being denied him, his love and protection by the government that refuses to uphold the law, much less the principles of truth and justice. newsdesk.asia/daughter-still-thinks-kim-gargar-coming-home-for-christmas/
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 00:20:27 +0000
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