0038~ here is one thing we should all be watchful of within us... cynicism.

Law
by Conrado de Quiros

THE ONE thing that sticks out like a sore thumb about driver Timoteo Soriano’s revised version of what happened in Subic is his saying that the cop who took down his statement forced him to say gang rape.

“Fyke Torres (the investigating officer),” he now says, “punched me twice in the back and said he would charge me as an accomplice to rape if I denied the gang rape.”I do not know why any cop in Subic, Richard Gordon’s favorite place, which has “America forever” draped across it, would be so anxious to pin down an American for wrongdoing. Indeed, not just one American but five, and not just for lewd behavior but for gang rape. Torres should sign up for a position in the police force of Baghdad. The Iraqis will welcome him with open arms.

The victim, Soriano says in his new version, was in fact drinking and hugging with Daniel Smith and doing “dirty dancing” with him along with other couples on the dance floor of Neptune Bar. She left the bar able to walk straight and went with the Americans in the van. She and Smith later argued, Smith calling her “bitch.” They drove on for a while and then one of the soldiers said, “I’m done.” Soriano saw that the woman’s trousers were down. But after the soldier said, “I’m done,” his buddies helped her pull up her pants. When they all left the van, the woman wasn’t crying.

It is big-time recantation. In this version, Soriano does not deny that something happened inside the van but leaves more than enough room for a shadow of doubt to creep in and suggest that what did happen might not have been rape. While retaining a detail or two to suggest some ugliness in the incident -- Smith calling the woman “bitch” -- Soriano points to consensual sex with all his other details: the drinking and hugging, the dirty dancing, his testimony that the woman entered the van willingly and left it less than tearfully.

I am tempted to say that, thankfully, we have other witnesses to refute this. Those other witnesses say the woman was carried out like a pig and left on the pavement in a wretched state, a condom sticking out of her panty. I am tempted to say that, thankfully, there is Torres himself who can swear Soriano offered his testimony completely voluntarily. And I am tempted to say there is common sense to make one wonder why any woman, short of the wildly kinky type, would wish to have consensual sex with a soldier in a van while his buddies roared their approval.

But I am not so sure those things are formidable barriers to this case disappearing in the toilet bowl whence most of the obscenities in this country have been flushed down of late. If Soriano can be persuaded to see that he really saw nothing, so can the others. Recanting has replaced karaoke as this country’s favorite pastime. Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s expostulation, when his witnesses in the "jueteng" illegal lottery hearings started being stricken deaf and blind, still rings in my ear: “There are no more principles. There are no more values and morals. Everything is just about money, money, money.”

But more than this, what makes me wonder if this case will prosper at all is that there is no public outrage accompanying it. Sure, the Gabriela and some other women’s groups have marched down the streets and even confronted an American official or two. Sure, several activist groups have said “I told you so” about the VFA producing the same sex crimes as the US bases, being basically the same thing sneaked in through the back door. Sure, a couple of politicians, like Joker Arroyo, have called for the suspects to be surrendered to Philippine authorities, and some media have demanded redress.

But that is all. We do not see a near-universal weeping and gnashing of teeth the way we did during Diosdado Macapagal’s time, when several Filipino kids were gunned down in the perimeters of Clark and Subic, after being presumed to be wild pigs.

The widespread attitude today is weariness, cynicism, indifference. That is the really scary part. Our capacity to tolerate injustice grows by the day. To say that our ethical and moral standards have taken a dive over the last four years is to say that Mike Tyson’s career has suffered a minor setback with his last defeat. It’s not just that we’re getting inured to rape and murder, it’s that we see nothing wrong in them anymore. It’s not just that we’ve learned to accept abuse and oppression, it is that we’ve learned to expect them. It has become the most natural thing in the world for presidents to screw the voters. It has become the most natural thing in the world for witnesses to recant. It has become the most natural thing in the world for foreigners to rape our women, abroad or in this country.

What stops iniquity really? What enforces the law really? In the end, it is not the courts or the cops or government. It is public expectation. Elsewhere, candidates do not steal votes because it is just not done. Witnesses do not say one thing today and another thing tomorrow because it is just not done. These iniquities do not just carry with them legal sanctions, they carry with them public opprobrium. That is what the force of law means, with particular emphasis on “force.” They carry with them the cultural equivalent of religious excommunication. You are not just punished with jail if caught, you are cut off from society and reduced to a pariah.

The opposite is just as true, of course. Rape, whether of a voter or a woman, gets factored into public consciousness to a point where it becomes a natural expectation, it will happen again and again. It will take on the force of law. That is what’s happening today. Without public outrage to waylay it, lawlessness has become the law.