A grave injustice

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A grave injustice

By Alejandro del Rosario

What happened to National Bureau ofInvestigation Director Magtanggol Gatdula should not happen even to a common criminal.

The disturbing aspect of this case is that Gatdula is a career law enforcer whose service record is unblemished by any incident of wrongdoing in theperformance of his duties.

In an incredible turn of events, Gatdula has been sacked as NBI Director by Justice Secretary Leila de la Lima without being given due process to air his side. De Lima formed a DOJ panel that did not summon Gatdula to the hearing.

Instead, the panel relied mostly on the hearsay testimony of another accused, security management division executive officer Jose Cabillan, who linked Gatdula to a kidnapping of and extortion on a Japanese fugitive, Norio Ohara.

Gatdula in fact relieved Cabellan and security management division chief Mario Garcia upon learningof the incident. The two had shown overzealousness in undertaking an operation to “rescue” Ohara from her supposed host family, the Marzans of Bugallon, Pangasinan.

In a twisted turn of events, the Japanese who fled thewrath of the Yakuza accused the Marzans of taking possession of her house and lot in Parañaque and two cars.

Ohara came into this country using a Philippine passport. She is now in custody of the NBI. Meanwhile, the bigger victim is NBI Director Magtanggol Gatdula who has been implicated, found guilty on the mere say so of principal accused Cabillan.

Our Filipino seafarers

The Philippines may have the worst international airport but we have world-class seafarers . This the whole world witnessed in the sinking of the Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia in the Mediterranean Sea.

A video camcorder footage taken by one of the crew showed Filipinos helping panic-stricken passengers put on their life jackets and getting them on the smaller evacuation boats. This was in stark contrast tothe captain of the cruise liner who abandoned ship even ahead of his passengers—of course after he ordered dinner, complete with dessert, from the Filipino chef at the ship’s kitchen.

This is a blatant violation of the law of the sea wherein the captain of the ship should be the last to leave a stricken vessel. In fact, if need be, he should even go down with the ship until all the passengers have been accounted for. The Italian captain is now facing a slew of charges—a civil suit from the passengers, administrative charges from the liner’s owners for abandonment, cowardice and negligence for running the ship aground.

More than half of the 296 Filipino crew are back home to their anxious families. The Department of Labor and Department of Foreign Affairs have cited them for the heroism they showed in a grave emergency situation. Eleven passengers died in the sunken ship. Two dozen remain missing.

Filipino seafarers account for more than half of the dollar remittances to the Philippines which help keepthe economy afloat. Filipinos are not just on the navigation crew and the ship’s below-deck operations; many of them are on cruise ships’ service staff such as bartenders, waiters and waitresses, and chamber maids.

On oil tankers, Filipinos are favored over other nationalities because of their resilience and fortitude and a working knowledge of English. Often, many ofthem are kidnapped by pirates in waters off Somalia and the Niger Delta while manning oil tankers that help keep the global fuel supply line flowing. But many of these Filipino seafarers reenlist, fully aware of the perils posed by pirates and an unpredictable sea.

By providing for their families back home, these Filipino seafarers also help ease the country’s unemployment problem.

I have met some of these hardy Filipino seafarers during my posting in Poland. Their ships made port ofcall in Gydnia, off the Baltic Sea. Sometimes, because of entry visa problems, they could not even go on shore leaves after being at sea for months. The ones that were able go ashore even just for a day told us ofthe desolate and lonely life at sea. They said they had no choice but to endure the hardship because they have to provide for the families they left behind.

The saddest part is when some of them come home in body bags when stormy seas claim them or they become victims of a cruel captain, and sometimes violent incidents among the crews.