THE PHILIPPINES: Justice for the Governor

A slender, hard-faced man, outwardly calm and obviously used to authority, stood last week in the governor’s office in Bacolod, capital of Negros Occidental Province, and heard himself sentenced to death. At this, an insignificant-looking woman, the mother of his victim smiled wanly and said: “Now I know that justice is for the rich and poor alike.”

In 1951 Rafael Lacson was the undisputed boss of Negros Occidental, second most populous province in the Philippines. He sat in the governor’s chair and, allied with the big sugar planters, ran a tight police state. The province’s 200.000 voters did as Lacson bade and so did the under paid farm workers. If anyone stepped out of line in Negros Occidental, he answered either to the planters’ private armies or to Lacson’s own bullet-hard, radio-equipped constabulary. In 1949 a few foreign correspondents flew in to inspect this little dictatorship; Governor Lacson turned them right around and flew them out. Occasionally, a charge of rape or murder against Lacson reached the court but nothing ever came of it. Even if he was a bit rough, he delivered solidly on election day. President Quirino’s Liberal administration could not afford to quibble.

Campaign Issue. But in 1951 a nobody named Moises Padilla invaded Lacson’s territory by running as opposition candidate for mayor of Magallon. Lacson sent word to Padilla to drop out. Usually this sufficed ; instead Padilla, an old guerrilla fighter against the Japanese, appealed to Ramon Magsaysay. then Defense Secretary, for protection. Magsaysay also worked for Liberal President Quirino, but Magsaysay had no use for Lacson’s little dictatorship. The army protected Padilla.

Padilla lost the election, of course. That night Lacson’s uniformed bully boys picked him up and took him on an impromptu road show. They toured from town to town beating and torturing Padilla, displaying him in a public square while one of the boys announced: “Here is what happens to people who oppose us.” Once Padilla saw his mother and managed to mumble: “Communicate Magsaysay.” But when Magsaysay reached Negros Occidental, he found Padilla’s body, broken and dripping blood onto a police bench with 14 bullets in the back. Lacson smiled easily: “Shot dead in an attempt to make his getaway.”

Magsaysay’s men uncovered enough evidence to indict Lacson and 26 henchmen for murder. The trial began in January 1952. but for one reason or another, during Quirino’s presidency, it was frequently interrupted (during one interlude, Lacson was convicted of raping his housemaid and sentenced to eight years). But the Padilla case was not forgotten. In his campaign for the presidency last year, Magsaysay would climax his speeches by declaring emotionally: “When I carried the body of Moises Padilla in my arms, it was not the body of Padilla but the body of the humble people of my country.”

Sobbed Verdict. One morning last week, in the social hall of ex-Governor Lacson’s own office building in Bacolod, the longest trial in the history of the province came to an end. As 2,000 Negrenses jammed the corridors, Judge Eduardo Enriquez rendered his verdict (there is no jury system in the Philippines). He traced Lacson’s rise to power, his private army, his “perfect and coordinated” system of political murder. Then the judge faltered. He recalled that he himself and Lacson had been college classmates: they had been “more than friends—like brothers.” The judge began to tremble but managed to say: “However, circumstances arise when the loyalty of friendship must give way . . .” Tears streaking his cheeks. Judge Enriquez then handed the decision to the clerks to continue reading and sat back in his chair, sobbing. The clerk faltered over the sentence; the judge shouted for him to continue, and the clerk went on: for 22 defendants, including three mayors, three police chiefs and Lacson, death in the electric chair.