Erica Virtue, Staff Reporter
NATIONAL Security Minister Dr. Peter Phillips said his presence at the funeral of late Arnett Gardens don William "Willie Haggart" Moore and the barrage of criticisms he took, had forced him to take stock of the signals politicians send to the public by their actions.
In an address to editors at The Gleaner Company last week, the Minister admitted that his presence was the cause of confusion in the eyes of many Jamaicans including school children.
The Minister said, it is demoralising to the society and more so to the police force, if it is felt that people who are said to be criminals, are perceived to be more valuable than others when politicians like himself show up at their funerals.
According to him, "speaking as somebody who came under a lot of public criticism for attending the funeral" of William 'Willie Haggart' Moore, "when I realised the complexity of the problem, was when the students at Ardenne High School, asked me to come and talk to them. And the symbolism... was just so confusing to them...it made me realise that one, especially in a position like mine you have to be very careful about the symbolic... you have to almost in a sense abandon a private right, which is my right to express my grief about anybody dying, and to that extent, it was not something that subtlety was going to get you around, subtlety of argument," Dr. Phillips said.
Asked if he would attend the funeral of another don should the situation arise, he said, "I don't want to give hostage to fortune, by measuring one situation with another. But, I have enough basis to have lots of concerns about people who many of us go to every day and some who we knock glasses with and say hi, how yuh doing, as much as about some people from other places."
The Minister said, he did not attend any funeral out of validation for the life of the deceased, but attended "for whatever reason your paths crossed..."
Dr. Phillips, Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies and Water and Housing Minister, Dr. Karl Blythe, attended the funeral in April this year and were heavily criticised by sections of the public. However, much criticism did not come from the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, one of whose member of Parliament found himself in the same dilemma months later.
Member of Parliament for North Eastern St. Andrew, Delroy Chuck, was pounded by sections of the society for his tribute, read at the funeral of late Grants Pen don, Andrew Stephens aka "Phang" in November.
Mr. Chuck defended his decision to send the tribute in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, saying he was not sorry he sent the tribute, but he later said he regretted his decision to do so.
