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regime, they do not violate the Constitution. To assert sovereignty is touphold the Constitution.

The Philippine political climate hinders political discourse whichthrives in democracy. A friend serving as a Philippine Consul-General

in Europe said to me: You cannot say that the Philippines is notdemocratic. You are still free to speak out. In a democracy, you saythe truth without fear of the whip or the gun. In this country, you do soconscious that you invite great peril unto yourself. You condemncorruption in the military, you are court-martialed. You protect therights of indigenous peoples, you are forcibly disappeared. You fightfor the rights of peasants and laborers, you will be indicted forrebellion. You expose the involvement of the First Family in corruptacts of unparalleled magnitude, your father gets booted out asSpeaker of the House of Representatives. You defend human rights,you are targeted as a terrorist. This is democracy? This

totalitarianism. And it is flourishing in a country that ratified mostcore human rights instruments enshrining political participation andwhich was one of the first 48 UN members to adopt the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights on 10 December 1948. The rule of lawmeans nothing to Golez boss. Philippine democracy has been purgedof spirit.

Close to a thousand activists and journalists have fallen victims toextrajudicial killings and hundreds becamedesaparecidos during theeight-year Rule of Arroyo. This shames the record of the Marcosdictatorship which lasted for over two decades. The Philippines

remains unbeaten in its record as the most dangerous place in theworld for journalists. According to the National Union of Journalists inthe Philippines, Areteo Padrigao is the 62nd (not 52nd as I earlierwrote) journalist killed since 2001.Journalists and scribes in Manipur, India are still on strike over themurder of their colleague, Konsam Rishikanta on 17 November 2008,the same day Padrigao was killed. Publications suspended operationsto demonstrate their righteous indignation. Lawyer Babloo Loitongbamof the Manipur-based Human Rights Alert furnished me a recordshowing that Rishikanta is the fifth journalist to be killed in that statesince 1993. Padrigao is the sixth this year!

And yet, how is the Filipino nation responding? Not with politicalmaturity because unlike the Thais, we are not free to exercise (our)political right based on democracy. Except for the privilege speech ofSenator Richard Gordon, the murder of Padrigao did not stir up ahornet's nest. Has the spate of killings desensitized us that one morename added to statistics on the murdered no longer shocks us?

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Prof Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summaryand Arbitrary Executions said: "(N)umbers are not what count. Theimpact of even a limited number of killings of the type alleged iscorrosive in many ways. It intimidates vast numbers of civil societyactors, it sends a message of vulnerability to all but the most well

connected, and it severely undermines the political discourse which iscentral to a resolution of the problems confronting this country."

The political atmosphere is ripe for protests if not a popular uprising ora revolution. But the Filipino people have been rendered politicallyimmature. If one death is enough to send a chilling message, considerthat there are more than 900 deaths and hundreds of disappearancesunder the Rule of Arroyo.

Mr. Golez, the Filipino national apathy is not sign of political maturity;it is symptomatic of alienation, of resignation, of hopelessness, of

many other things, not least of all the death of democracy.

Your boss has been presiding over its wake and you are a pallbearer.