‘Gigil’

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM April 02, 2019

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo was miffed. This pesky Maria

Ressa was complaining about being arrested again, and Panelo simply
couldn’t fathom how the series of arrests and string of cases hurled so far
at the Rappler CEO could be an attack on press freedom.

“She wants to be treated differently. That cannot be done,” huffed Panelo.

“She cannot be complaining that this is a violation of press freedom. All
are equal before the law.”
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“All are equal before the law”?

Let’s see: Since the Securities and Exchange Commission sought to revoke
Rappler’s license in January 2018, following President Duterte’s
accusation during his 2017 State of the Nation Address that Rappler was
an American-owned company, 11 cases have been filed against Ressa and
Rappler directors in different courts.

Her arrest on Friday last week, for supposedly violating the Anti-Dummy
Law, was the second in two months. In February, Ressa was arrested over
a cyberlibel case filed by businessman Wilfredo Keng. In a span of one
year, she had to post bail seven times, and she and her colleagues have
had to shell out more than P2 million in bail and travel bonds.

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The cases, which include five tax evasion charges, stem from the main
allegation by the administration that Rappler’s issuance of Philippine
Depositary Receipts to Omidyar Network Fund LLC, the company owned
by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, constitutes proof of foreign control of
the company, in violation of the Constitution.

There is an untranslatable Filipino word for the kind of behavior being

levied by the powers that be on Ressa and Rappler: “gigil.”

The nearest word perhaps is obsession — ardor in the positive sense, but
something much darker in the opposite, where one fixates on the subject
of one’s anger or hostility to the point of renouncing all reason or
common sense.

Those extraordinary numbers racked up by Ressa and Rappler in terms

of arrest warrants, bail money — not to mention the snorts and sneers
regularly emanating from Malacañang about them — testify to an
unprecedented level of “gigil” on the part of the administration.

Panelo may wish to call that behavior something else, but one thing is
certain: It’s not, in any way, a manifestation of equality before the law.

One only needs to look at the list of administration allies facing plunder,
graft, drug links and other crimes who remain free and are seemingly
beyond the long arm of the law to realize how comical that statement is.
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Where is the similar dogged pursuit when Marcos widow Imelda was
sentenced by the Sandiganbayan to 77 years in jail for graft late last year?
In fact, Imelda never had to set foot in jail as her bail was quickly posted.

President Duterte himself publicly said he was paying a debt of gratitude

to the Marcoses for their support for his candidacy. The payback is there
for all to see — from the hero’s burial of the late dictator to the
continuing freedom of his wife even after conviction.

Despite the taint of plunder, the Duterte administration and the

presidential daughter have also endorsed the reelection bids of former
senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Jinggoy Estrada.

Meanwhile, until now, brothers Ben and Erwin Tulfo have yet to return
to the national coffers the P60 million paid to their television show by
their sister, then Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo, in a brazen conflict-of-
interest case flagged by the Commission on Audit.

And despite the usual “I will kill you” threat from President Duterte
against his friend Peter Lim who has been linked to illegal drugs, Lim has
yet to be found and made accountable, the police seemingly in no hurry
to know where the guy is, much less serve him a pending warrant of
arrest.

The same lenient circumstances have favored another presidential

friend, Michael Yang, who was readily cleared of alleged involvement in
the drug trade without even a token inquiry into the matter.

The cherry on the pie, if you will, is secessionist leader Nur Misuari, who
recently threatened the country with war if federalism is not achieved, to
Mr. Duterte’s unruffled face. Before that, the President had casually
revealed he had interfered with the courts to ask that Misuari be allowed
to travel abroad despite the grave cases against him.
“All are equal under the law”?

As the social-media generation would say, LOL. The singular and by now
farcical pursuit of Ressa and Rappler proves the very opposite: that under
this administration, some are more equal than others.

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120511/gigil#ixzz5lX1oz5fO 
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