E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Is there a Mayuga Report?
Sunday, 04 23, 2006
Does the Mayuga Report really exist?
Not until we get to see it published in its unexpurgated candor could anyone say it exists. After all, what Navy Chief Mayuga disclosed were only his alleged conclusions, which may not be supported (yet) at all by the facts actually gathered or concocted so far.
Methinks this a reportage version of reverse engineering, where the conclusions are already predetermined, and the facts or findings are gathered and meticulously tinkered with, tailored, bent and recast to support a foregone conclusion. Any minutae that goes against the grain is weeded out. The conclusions are then inflicted upon the nation, floated like a trial balloon that is tantalizingly pimped up to draw reactions from a populace whom they think is too dumb to see through the subterfuge. That way, the military could claim that it is telling the truth. After all, a conclusion can only be based on facts adduced.
To paraphrase Lincoln, you can screw all the people some of the time, hoodwink some people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. It’s been nine months since the report was supposed to have been finished — that’s long enough a time, even assuming that the military had to delay issuing it for a while because corrections had to be made in the faulty grammar and subject-predicate agreements that characterize most documents coming from the military. It’s all right, guys; we can understand that. We know what the oxymoron “military intelligence” means. But nine frigging months?
Nine months is 36 weeks is 252 days is 6,048 hours is 362,880 minutes. How much longer does the public have to wait now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the repressive Executive Order 464 is unconstitutional?
Do we still have to count some more months and weeks and days and hours because the report has not incorporated yet facts and findings that will be crafted (grafted?) along the way to conveniently answer the questions that might be raised by a public reacting to a report that has yet to be made public?
Take the conclusion that not one of the generals implicated in the Garci tapes was engaged in any partisan political activity. That is a conclusion that can be easily supported by witnesses chosen only after the disclosure of the conclusion.
Despite the admissions and claims made by Marine General Gudani before the Senate, no affirmative conclusion has been made by Mayuga and his investigators. This is very much consistent with the foreordained conclusion on their part that the Garci tapes are manufactured and, therefore, cannot be the basis for further investigation, much less to indict the generals.
Or, when we demand the disclosure of the 70 resource persons whom Mayuga claims did not witness any of the generals engaging in any partisan political activity, their names, in due time, will be released. In the meantime, is Mayuga still recruiting volunteers from among the ranks of the military willing to be called in as witnesses?
And who are the two colonels who should be subject to further investigation? If they have been uncovered to have engaged in partisan political activity, it will be easy to support this conclusion with suborned witnesses.
The military and their Commander-in-Chief are insulting the intelligence of the people. They think the people can be placated by a piecemeal release of the (expletive deleted) Mayuga Report.
This is crisis management all over again, just like the way they handled Garcillano. For over six months, there were many side issues floated that diverted the attention of the public away from the issue of fraud to steal the elections from Fernando Poe, Jr. and Loren Legarda. The fake passport, the note verbale from Singapore, the escape via Subic, and the sighting in London, were all mirrors and smoke forced on the audience by a stage magician, as it were, until they became the center of focus in the inquiry, no longer on the fraud. And look at how the evil that GMA has done was sidetracked when Garcillano finally surfaced.
Now, with Mayuga’s silence after releasing his conclusions, Senga’s insistence on confidentiality, Mayuga’s promotion in the interim, the opening of housing facilities for the military, etcetera, the public’s focus on the report has been predictably diverted if not altogether dissipated. Not to worry, folks — in due time the lack of interest shall ineluctably set in. Then another controversy shall take over the focus of attention. The funny thing is that there are persons still willing to absorb the blame.
The focus should be on Mayuga himself, but he has been rendered incommunicado. Thus, we have the AFP spokesman mouthing the reasons for non-disclosure, or the AFP chief of staff himself assuring the public of the need for confidentiality in the name of national security.
Mayuga’s continued silence is akin to Garcillano’s disappearance. When Mayuga shall finally open his mouth, he surely shall have concocted a tale that neatly dovetails with the facts he will disclose, just like the way Garcillano was able to wiggle out of the congressional probe which, by the way, never focused on his participation in the electoral fraud.
And so it goes. Issues have a way of fizzling out, controversies have a way of being stretched to the limits of absurdity, while the government tries to find a way out. And you can bet your devalued peso that in the case of the Mayuga report this government will find a way out.
Like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat, Mayuga should be pulled by the ears to force him to go public with his report. Only then can we say, with certainty, that he has a report, whatever it contains.
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