‘Is Dela Rosa prepared to come face-to-face with the still grieving and terribly bitter families of the victims of EJKs?’
SEN. Ronald dela Rosa has been taken to task by ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro for his refusal to appear before a House committee hearing probing thousands of extra-judicial killings in former president Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on illegal drugs.
Castro said Dela Rosa’s refusal to grace the probe was a “cowardly act” and “an attempt to evade accountability.”
Dela Rosa, also known as “Bato,” served as PNP chief during the administration of Duterte.
He said he would attend the hearings if Duterte would be made to appear before the committee, apparently confident that his former boss would shield him from numerous sworn accusations of murder and salvaging by PNP drug operatives of suspected and mostly unarmed drug users, pushers and dealers.
But Duterte attending the House inquiry is almost next to impossible.
Is Dela Rosa prepared to come face-to-face with the still grieving and terribly bitter families of the victims of EJKs? Would he be man enough to face a very angry throng whose husbands or sons were suddenly lost to homicidal and vicious police officers under his command?
Castro has reiterated what the country wants — the vital need for the families to pursue and find justice and the truth.
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Children would be the first casualties of an absolute divorce law in the Philippines. As in the United States, thousands of children are expected to live in misery and resentment for decades, unable to overcome the incomparably deep pain from the separation of their loving parents.
When the law was first enforced in the US some 80 years ago, only one in five marriages went into divorce. For the past 10 years, the rate of divorce in the US has spiraled out of control.
Children will be made to choose which parent he or she would like to live with. It is a profoundly terrifying choice no child has to make.
This brings us to the movie “Catch Me If You Can” starring Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of Frank Abagnale Jr., who wept inconsolably as he ran away from a courtroom in New York City, away from his loving parents. It was the point when a judge approved the divorce of his parents.
In his numerous talks in the US, Abagnale Jr. repeatedly mentioned that it was very devastating for a child to witness his parents separating. He was, after all, still a child at 16 then.
It was especially difficult for Abagnale Jr. because his parents were very loving and caring to him and his brother. His father would always go to his and his brother’s bedside every night, kiss them “good night” and tell them “I love you, son.”
Abagnale Jr. also painfully recounted that after his parents were divorced, he cried himself to sleep every night until he was 19. He would only see his mother again after seven years.
He would create a “new world” away from his nightmarish past, becoming a con artist, masquerading as an airline pilot, a doctor, and a professor. The FBI ultimately arrested him and after spending six years in prison, he was hired by the agency as a consultant to help in forgery and fraud cases.
