A weekend caucus among leaders of the ruling party produced the following boast from Gloria
Arroyo:
"I have just met with former President Ramos, Speaker [Jose] de Venecia [Jr.] and several key
leaders of the ruling party. The meeting was warm, constructive and forward-looking. We
agreed to revitalize the administration coalition behind our vision…
"It was the sentiment of the party leaders that teamwork in nation-building, unity of purpose
[and] solidarity in values should always prevail and not allow small hurts to get in the way of
staying as one family and fulfilling our hopes for the people."
Those "small hurts" did not look so small when Fidel Ramos was pounding his desk protesting
the pardon of Joseph Estrada, when Gloria Arroyo's aides bribed 190 congressmen to force
Speaker de Venecia to refer the bogus impeachment complaint to the House justice
committee, and when de Venecia responded with an ultimatum letter to Gloria Arroyo asking
her to fire her most loyal henchmen and to undergo a moral recovery, even if there were no
morals there to recover in the first place.
The family disagreement looked so large and irreconcilable a split looked inevitable. But size
became relative when the grand vision emerged—"unlimited power and unrestrained plunder up
to and beyond 2010."
And so the ruling family's capos decided, "Our loyalty to our country ends when our loyalty to
our party begins."
Lakas-CMD will not split into two lines, one behind Mrs. Arroyo and the other behind the
Speaker, because Gloria Arroyo made sure everyone saw who held the slop bucket.
Under Erap it was "weather-weather lang"; under Gloria it's "pera-pera lang."
Gloria Arroyo will not be impeached over the ZTE broadband deal. The leaders of the ruling
party, their group picture splashed on the front page of last Monday's papers, gave the thumbs
up for this administration to continue with plunder, human-rights violations, extrajudicial killings
and, most important of all, to keep those cash-filled envelopes coming.
It doesn't matter that Joey de Venecia III told the truth. Not when the AFP is the AFGMA and
the PNP is "Pulis Ni Pidal"; not when businessmen are under the spell of a brother of fugitive
businessman Dewey Dee; not when the perfumed set continue to consider themselves and the
Arroyo couple as "somos"; not when the guardians of morality, the Catholic Bishops'
Conference of the Philippines, allow themselves to be wined and dined by Malacañang.
Gloria is not afraid of civil society anymore. The only people who still scare her "are those
soldiers kept in General Esperon's jails.
Under ordinary circumstances, those soldiers, charged with mutiny and attempted coup, would
be considered traitors. But these are extraordinary times, and those soldiers hold the moral
high ground over Gloria Arroyo's generals who are perceived to have turned their back on
everything they learned in the academy.
And so, with each new scandal, the prisoners of Esperon gain more respect from the public and
the rank and file in the military.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think a coup is the best solution to the Gloria Arroyo
problem.
I have no doubt those soldiers detained in Tanay are highly principled, honest and patriotic. But
a junta, no matter how pure and well-meaning at the outset, has a tendency to degenerate
into a dictatorship, as history has shown countless times.
So I think it's best for the civilian population to take care of the Gloria problem before the
military becomes impatient and does it for them.
Over the weekend, I received an alarming text that confirmed rumors that the soldiers are
losing patience and a bloody civil war is in the offing if civil society delays on its duty to oust
Gloria through impeachment or people power.
The text message read:
"While Malacañang was loudly rejoicing over the neutralization of civilian society, a high-ranking
general was quietly dispatched to Tanay to plead with the detained soldiers not to issue any
more inflammatory statements against their superiors. He told them their uncompromising
position was beginning to seriously affect the chain of command; the rumbling among the rank
and file was growing stronger. From Tanay, the general went straight to Malacañang to
report that his appeal was turned down."
We are foolishly marching toward civil war, the most uncivil of wars, because we continue to
buy the lie that human beings will tolerate injustice as long as they have a full stomach. History
does not suffer fools gladly.
Buencamino writes political commentary for Action for Economic Reforms (www.aer.ph)
Arroyo:
"I have just met with former President Ramos, Speaker [Jose] de Venecia [Jr.] and several key
leaders of the ruling party. The meeting was warm, constructive and forward-looking. We
agreed to revitalize the administration coalition behind our vision…
"It was the sentiment of the party leaders that teamwork in nation-building, unity of purpose
[and] solidarity in values should always prevail and not allow small hurts to get in the way of
staying as one family and fulfilling our hopes for the people."
Those "small hurts" did not look so small when Fidel Ramos was pounding his desk protesting
the pardon of Joseph Estrada, when Gloria Arroyo's aides bribed 190 congressmen to force
Speaker de Venecia to refer the bogus impeachment complaint to the House justice
committee, and when de Venecia responded with an ultimatum letter to Gloria Arroyo asking
her to fire her most loyal henchmen and to undergo a moral recovery, even if there were no
morals there to recover in the first place.
The family disagreement looked so large and irreconcilable a split looked inevitable. But size
became relative when the grand vision emerged—"unlimited power and unrestrained plunder up
to and beyond 2010."
And so the ruling family's capos decided, "Our loyalty to our country ends when our loyalty to
our party begins."
Lakas-CMD will not split into two lines, one behind Mrs. Arroyo and the other behind the
Speaker, because Gloria Arroyo made sure everyone saw who held the slop bucket.
Under Erap it was "weather-weather lang"; under Gloria it's "pera-pera lang."
Gloria Arroyo will not be impeached over the ZTE broadband deal. The leaders of the ruling
party, their group picture splashed on the front page of last Monday's papers, gave the thumbs
up for this administration to continue with plunder, human-rights violations, extrajudicial killings
and, most important of all, to keep those cash-filled envelopes coming.
It doesn't matter that Joey de Venecia III told the truth. Not when the AFP is the AFGMA and
the PNP is "Pulis Ni Pidal"; not when businessmen are under the spell of a brother of fugitive
businessman Dewey Dee; not when the perfumed set continue to consider themselves and the
Arroyo couple as "somos"; not when the guardians of morality, the Catholic Bishops'
Conference of the Philippines, allow themselves to be wined and dined by Malacañang.
Gloria is not afraid of civil society anymore. The only people who still scare her "are those
soldiers kept in General Esperon's jails.
Under ordinary circumstances, those soldiers, charged with mutiny and attempted coup, would
be considered traitors. But these are extraordinary times, and those soldiers hold the moral
high ground over Gloria Arroyo's generals who are perceived to have turned their back on
everything they learned in the academy.
And so, with each new scandal, the prisoners of Esperon gain more respect from the public and
the rank and file in the military.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think a coup is the best solution to the Gloria Arroyo
problem.
I have no doubt those soldiers detained in Tanay are highly principled, honest and patriotic. But
a junta, no matter how pure and well-meaning at the outset, has a tendency to degenerate
into a dictatorship, as history has shown countless times.
So I think it's best for the civilian population to take care of the Gloria problem before the
military becomes impatient and does it for them.
Over the weekend, I received an alarming text that confirmed rumors that the soldiers are
losing patience and a bloody civil war is in the offing if civil society delays on its duty to oust
Gloria through impeachment or people power.
The text message read:
"While Malacañang was loudly rejoicing over the neutralization of civilian society, a high-ranking
general was quietly dispatched to Tanay to plead with the detained soldiers not to issue any
more inflammatory statements against their superiors. He told them their uncompromising
position was beginning to seriously affect the chain of command; the rumbling among the rank
and file was growing stronger. From Tanay, the general went straight to Malacañang to
report that his appeal was turned down."
We are foolishly marching toward civil war, the most uncivil of wars, because we continue to
buy the lie that human beings will tolerate injustice as long as they have a full stomach. History
does not suffer fools gladly.
Buencamino writes political commentary for Action for Economic Reforms (www.aer.ph)
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| Headlong toward civil war By Manuel Buencamino, November 8, 2007 |