The ghost of Resuello

TALKS are now rife about the 2010 elections.

Politicians, both at the national and local levels, are already pondering positioning, cajoling, and collaborating for their spots in next year’s polls, a particularly crucial one for the country as it is a presidential election and comes at a time when the global and local economies are in grave financial turmoil.

While all the political excitement and tension are building up, our view of the past and the lessons it holds should not be obscured. The past teaches us about the dark side: electoral fraud, scheming and lying officials, vote-buying, election-related violence; but it also gives us a bright side: signs of a maturing electorate with the defeat of non-performing leaders and celebrity candidates, and a relatively good turn-out of voters. To be able to truly move forward, we need to remind ourselves of all these that have come before.

Here, in our local turf, we also still need to exorcise the ghosts of guns, goons and gold, which undermine our democracy. A concrete manifestation of these phantoms is the still unresolved case of former San Carlos City mayor Julian Resuello who was shot by suspected gun-for-hire operators, who obviously carry out a kill upon the paid instruction of someone who stands to benefit from the murder, during a very public event at the height of the campaign period in the May 2007 election. We must not forget that aside from Resuello, there were others who died or got injured in that shooting spree on a fiesta night.

It is a disappointing development that the case has recently been trashed by the Ilocos Sur prosecutor handling it for supposed lack of evidence. This case could set the precedent on how not to find the perpetrators of political violence. Curiously, the Department of Justice recently said the case of the assassination of Ninoy Aquino could still be revived if the testimony of another suspect currently at large is obtained implicating whoever in the conspiracy 26 years ago. This runs against the grain of arguments posed by the prosecutor in Resuello’s case. Fortunately, the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which heads the ‘Task Force Resuello’, is not giving up and the slain mayor’s son, incumbent Mayor Julier Resuello, is looking at other avenues to help solve the case.

The case may, or almost expectedly will, drag on in our legal courts. But the people have the power to decide in the court of public opinion through the elections. With the ballots we cast, we are not only voting for public officials per se, but we are making a choice to say no to violence, corruption, and the old fruitless ways of politicking.

With our democratic system, the people still hold the power to effect the changes that they want by voting for leaders who know what it means to be a true public servant and the ways of good governance.

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