Letter from Takeo, Cambodia

TO THE ONE WHO CONQUERS 

by DR. Norberto L. Mercado 

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 12:02 AM 

Letter from Takeo, Cambodia: A Cambodian Lady Pastor Told Me Her Story As A Child During the Rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

Thank you for praying for me in my trips. Lots of adventures
happened.

But God saw me through all of these.

I'm here in the Takeo province, Kingdom of Cambodia .

It is educational and fruitful to immerse one's self with the people in the countrysides.

They have simple lives.

This afternoon, we had a fellowship beside a lake here in Takeo. This is the province where the murderous KHMER ROUGE (Khmer reds or communists) began their movement.

Not far from the place where we had fellowship near the lake is the mansion of Tamuk, built by forced labor in 1975-1976, upon the victory of the Khmer Rouge when they ousted Lon Nol from power.

Tamuk was the right-hand of Pol Pot. He controlled the army in five provinces, including Takeo, and shared power over the army in all provinces. He died in 2007 at the age of 70. He was the most murderous, most ruthless, among Pol Pot's lieutenants.

This afternoon, I interviewed a woman here in Takeo who is now a lady pastor. I want to write her story in a book. She is married to a pastor, and they have three children (all boys) . One died in a car accident .

She was born in 1970, and was around six(6) years old when the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot came to power. She was about ten (10) years old when the Khmer Rouge were ousted by the Vietnamese Army.

Her story is funny and horrifying at the same time.

She told me that all the children in her village, and she was one of them, were assigned by the Khmer Rouge to gather human dung everyday.

The Khmer Rouge soldiers would wake them up at 4:00 AM, sometimes 3:00 AM, DAILY.

THE CHILDREN WERE GROUPED INTO 12 MEMBERS EACH GROUP - 6 GIRLS and 6 BOYS. Their assignment by the order of the Khmer Rouge : To gather human dung up to 12:00 PM, have lunch, and then gather dung again from 1 PM to 6 PM. Dinner would be at 7 PM.

They would do this everyday, from Monday to Sunday, week after week, month after month, year after year during the rule of the Khmer communists(Khmer Rouge) under Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Non Chea, Tamuk and all the other communist murderers.

And you know what the Khmer communists did to the human dung those children gathered everyday?

They ordered the children to mix them with the food the people were erating everyday! Human dung became an added food for the people because there was less food to eat !!!

So, in every meal that the people in their village in Takeo ate, human dung was added!!!

The lady pastor (who was a child then) was one of those assigned to taste the food. She said the Khmer Rouge would not want to taste it.

Many of the children who gathered human dung day after day died.

In her group of 12 , 9 died - 6 boys and 3 girls. Only three (3) survived. She was one of the three. Two of them are in Cambodia. One is in the US - she married an American when she grew up.

She said that if the children would cry, the communist would tie their hands to the back, and kill them.

"Ï didn't cry,"she told me.

The children were separated from their families. They were allowed to join their parents only for one hour, once a week.

Then, the Khmer Rouge expected them to return to duty and work. Otherwise, they would be taken from their parents and killed.

She said that hunger was so bad they would eat leaves of trees, and grasses - anything they could eat. But they would eat only as a group - not alone.

Anyone caught by the Khmer Rouge soldiers eating leaves or grass all by himself or herself was killed for disobeying the order of the communists.

Out of seven million Cambodians, the lady pastor told me that more than three(3) million died during the rule of the Khmer communists. Not two million as reported in the past. They died of execution by bullets and sickles, famines, sicknesses such as cholera,malaria, and diarrhea, and simply exhaustion from daily farm - communal work.

She said that the Khmer Rouge soldiers were so young - mostly only young boys and teen-agers. They all wore black uniforms.

You know, if I stay long here in Cambodia, I could write more books and novels out of the people I am interviewing.

I'll be back to the Philippines via Saigon on Friday.

Hugs,

Norbert

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God Can Give Us The Serenity To Accept The Things We Cannot Change

Our basketball team, the AMWAY BLUE BEES A calls him "Awee". He lives in a squatter area in Quezon City, and he loves basketball. He is the captain ball of our team, and I'm the coach.

He is young, fast, agile, and full of hopes. He is the highest pointer in all our eight games; we won seven (7), and lost one (1). He dreamt of becoming the "Most Valuable Player(MVP)" in the Third Conference of the Sunday Basketball Association(SBA) Philippines, Col. Norberto L. Mercado MNSA Cup (See SBA CHANNEL - www.youtube.com/sbaitv)

The AMWAY BLUE BEES A team ranked second in the "Round Robin Games". The GSG Builders ranked first (undefeated, 8-0).

Eight (8) of the 10 teams would enter the semi-final games last December 4, and they were pitted by drawing game lots. That means whichever two teams would pick up the "Game 1" rolled sheets of paper would play "Game 1", and so on and so forth. The AMWAY BLUE BEES picked up "Game 3". The other lower-ranking teams ( from third to eighth-ranking teams) got "Game 2" and "Game 3".

The first in the Round Robin Games ( GSG Builders) got "Game 3". This meant our team would play against GSG Builders last Dec. 4.

We did, and we lost. We were eliminated from the "SUPER 4" teams which would vie for the TOP 4 positions on December 4 and 11,2011. (My other team, AMWAY BLUE BEES B, won against RED TIERRA. I'm their playing coach).

Our team's defeat means the death of Awee's dream of becoming the MVP of the Sunday Basketball Association(SBA) Philippines for the year 2011.


DREAMS CAN DIE

Each one of us has a dream.
Some of us have small dreams, some have grand ones.

Awee, the young man from the slum area, just want to be the 2011 MVP in the SBA Third Conference. Basketball is his sport, and succeeding in it means a lot to him.

Other people have bigger dreams - becoming mayor, congressman, governor, senator, even president of the Philippines.

Still others want to be successful businessmen, actors, actresses, lawyers, doctors,Supreme Court justices, world champions in boxing, soccer, basketball, and other sports.

While some do succeed in their dreams, many others fail.

Victory or defeat, success or failure, glory or shame can come to any man - rich and poor alike.

This is the irony and reality of life.

Take President Noynoy Aquino as an example. He won the highest office of the land, which is a big honor indeed. But to his chagrin, while in his second year in office, he and his family lost Hacienda Luisita.

Or Senator Manny Villar. With more than P1-billion in his campaign "war chest", bigger than any campaign fund of any 2010 presidential candidate, he dreamt of becoming the next president of the Philippines after Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, only to land a poor third to Joseph Estrada.

Aquino got 15,208,678 (42.08% of the total votes cast). I am one of those who campaigned and voted for Noynoy Aquino for President. Estrada had 9,487,837 votes(26,25%), while Villar only got 5,573,835 (15.42%). The other presidential candidates - Teodoro,Villanueva,Gordon,delos Reyes, Madrigal, Perlas, and the COMELEC -"disqualified, then qualified, then disqualified" Vetallano Acosta - got the remaining votes.

If DOJ Sec. Leila de Lima will look at these figures and be honest to herself, she will have to conclude that her boss does not really have the " majority " of the registered Filipino votes, but just the "plurality" ( 42.08% of the total votes cast in 2010).

On the other hand, when the 1987 Philippine Constitution (also called the "Cory Constitution") was presented to the Filipino people for ratification, if my memory does not fail me, it was overwhelmingly voted for by eighty seven (87%) of the Filipino voters at that time.

Now, this is the highest law of the land which defines the kind of government this republic should have - a government of three equal branches (executive, legislative, and judicial).

The 1987 Philippine Constitution declares that the President and the Vice-President of the Philippines (executive), and the members of the Philippine Senate and Congress (legislative) should be directly elected by the Filipino voters.

On the other hand, the members of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, must be appointed by the President of the Philippines .

This is what the "majority of the Filipino people want", as enshrined in the highest law which they approved. They don't want the SC Chief Justice and the Associate Justices to be directly elected by the people, but to be appointed by the President of the Philippines whom they elected. This is the will of "the majority".
This is the "majority of the people" that want the Supreme Court to be the ultimate interpreter and arbiter of the laws of the land, the legislative branch to be the crafter of the law, and the executive branch to be the implementor of the law. This is the "will of the majority", so that there will be order and unity in running the government.

While CJ Renato Corona is considered a "midnight appointee" by GMA, the validity and efficacy of his appointment was already resolved and approved by the august body.

The 1987 Philippine Constitution was overwhelmingly approved by 87 % of the total number of Filipino voters ( a truly majority vote), while President Noynoy Aquino only got 42.08 %
of the total votes cast (plurality vote).

This fact really shows where the love, respect, and sympathy of "the majority" of the Filipino people - in the Philippine Constitution.

Any persona or group, therefore, that says it wants to serve and follow the will of the majority of the Filipino people should work within, and must respect and follow the Philippine Constitution.


PRESIDENT AQUINO'S DREAM

President Benigno Aquino III has a noble dream - to uplift the welfare of the majority of the Filipino people who have been suffering from economic malaise and other manifestations of social injustice. It is a dream which we should all fully support, whatever political fence we belong to if we are true to our claim that we are serving the interest and will of the majority of our people.

But P-Noy, in the pursuit of this dream, should work within the parameters of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. He should reject the temptation of a short-cut, no matter how resplendent the short-cut is.

The militants in congress and on the street who claim that they are serving the majority of our people, should obey and respect the Philippine Constitution, everything which states and not just a paragraph or two. They should help President Aquino improve the lives of our people instead of shouting the perennial "isms" which they don't even fully comprehend.

President Aquino needs and deserves our support - the support of the "plurality" that voted him into office, and the "majority" that overwhelmingly approved the 1987 Philippine Constitution. If P-Noy fails in his dream, though I hope he will not, then that's the reality of life. He has a successor in 2016 , as the 1987 Philippine Constitution provides, who will continue the unfinished job of lifting the lives of our countrymen. I hope that P-Noy, in his anger and frustration over what has been happening to his programs of government, will pray the prayer of the Rev. Reinhold Niehbur in Nazi-occupied Germany during the Second World War:

"Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things
I can not change, the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know their difference."

We Filipinos will continue to dream.
Those of us who believe in the God of Israel, the real Creator and power of the universe, will continue to put our hope and faith in Him, even if the dream of one leader dies.

Today is today. Tomorrow is another day!

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