I read in the papers today the offer of Zaldy Ampatuan to be a state witness and his statements against his father and alleged confirmation on electoral frauds and corruption committed by the previous administration.

It is an offer that any ordinary man can easily dismiss it as non-sense. As they say in the old days that it takes a devil to bite a devil’s bait. Sometimes we hear things like this when someone is victimized to the baits of thebudol-budol gangs and you wonder why in the first place you bite the bait. It is something like this.

I have some relatives and very close Muslim friends, and I live in an area where I grow up with them like part of their family, and one thing that they told me about is that you should not turn your back against your family, father and faith.

Among our Muslim communities, the indigenous Filipino value of being part of a community or in a family is still very strong in their societies. They cannot see themselves even in their dreams to turn against their own family and community.

But what Zaldy is doing is very unnatural as a human being and as a Muslim Filipino. He turned his back on his own father first and then, one by one naming his political friends who allegedly plundered their province that welded their entire clans’ hold of power in that region. It’s easy now to drop the names of anyone to be allegedly involved in anything since Zaldy had already dropped his father, and to him it’s his bargaining power, probably his last and desperate move since his family will be implicated in some plunder cases to be filed against him. To me, this is a stupid bait.

A true man’s act, with pride, is to admit that he committed that gruesome crime and is ready to pay the price. He will not be praised or appreciated by his admission but at least we can see a damned person in himself and no longer a beast as most of us have perceived him to be.

One made comments in an article in that newspaper said that every “little Hitler’s” offer is coupled with malicious intention and not worthy of any notice. If in doubt, they said, just open the gruesome videos of the Maguindanao massacre to refresh our anger. The fact the offer is unnatural in any context you are going to analyze it, we don’t need to refresh our anger but, as a citizen of a faith based nation, we should disregard the offer outright.

After that Maguindanao massacre, I had a student whose family name is Ampatuan but the young man was never affected by the news despite they have the same family name and they belonged to the same region. He was very intelligent and actively participated in class discussions on Maguindanao massacre and in school activities accompanied by his peers and his girlfriend, this without being ashamed of his family name.

I suspect that somebody is up to that bait thus the offer and the statements are appearing everyday in the news probably to condition the mind of the public by taking advantage on the weaknesses and the popular misdeeds of GMA and the former First Gentleman today. To soften the image of Zaldy and the perception of the public to him, they have to make accusations implicating the publicly beaten Arroyos. Somebody will be benefited from this especially from the vast resources of the Ampatuan. In the end and again and again, the State loses.

Zaldy’s offer should not be given any hints of good faith, for a bait is a bait.