Estragon: I can’t go on like this.
Vladimir: That’s what you think.- Samuel Beckett, "Waiting for Godot"
"Why can’t you guys wait for 2010?"
I was chatting with a friend over some snacks when she asked me that rather interesting question. Apparently, she read what I did a couple of days ago in the papers, and it seems that it was rather imprudent for me to call out GMA to answer the charges leveled against her. To GMA’s credit, it seems that the Philippines is riding out the economic storm rather well. Her claim was that if we continue to demand for GMA’s ouster, much less ask her to answer the charges of May 2004, the ZTE scam, the fertilizer scam, and the BJE MOA-AD, we’re risking political and economic instability. As it seems, GMA is the "answer to our woes."
Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with GMA if I don’t question her legitimacy, her fitness to rule, if she has the interests of the people in mind, and if she didn’t violate the Constitution and the territorial integrity of the Philippines. The rest of the day, I don’t have a problem with GMA. My problem lies in the fact that legitimacy, fitness to rule, the public good, protecting the Constitution, and protecting Philippine sovereignty and independence are duties and tasks we expect of the President.
Besides, if GMA is the answer to our woes, why are many of us living woeful lives?
I think it’s high time we demand some accountability in our Government. For me, waiting for 2010 is to bury our self-respect as a people. Waiting for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to finish her term before answering questions before the public – questions relevant to her being the President – is like us waiting for Godot: we might as well hang ourselves and get our erections, so to speak.
Waiting for 2010 is to lose our self-respect for ourselves, which is not something we want to happen. We are a dignified people who can only take so much screwing from This Government.
I recommend that bloggers write about their feelings about This Government. People who play DoTA or use Friendster or whatnot to take the time to write one blog post – just one blog post – every now and then. Every week, to say that they have had enough of the scams and irregularities and disregard for accountability in this nation. It’s not the most we can do, but it’s something we can all do.
I can’t promise that this will lead to a change in Government or that this will guarantee that Arroyo will be booted out of office, but because I believe it’s high time we told The Government that they can’t kick us around anymore. We demand answers not after 2010, but while the President is still there, accountable and answerable to all of us. That we have had enough.
In the words of Twisted Sister: we’re not gonna take it. No, we ain’t gonna take it. Just you try and make us: we’re not gonna take it anymore.
Simple? That’s what you think. We’re right. We’re free. We’ll fight. You’ll see.
Popularity: 1% [?]
SIDES OF HISTORY Back in 1976, i was just a simple provincial boy staying in Manila to pursue a college course which unfortunately i failed to finish.
Well, that was 4 years after Marcos declared martial law and the country’s levers of power all under the tight grip of his political machinery.Effectively and efficiently.
There was a relatively peaceful environment ( with the help of curfew, of course ) and the economy was apparently getting better.
But then, i stll felt the sense that something was wrong in that system and that it will eventually correct itself or suffer an ignominous fall.
WAS THE THE SO-CALLED “WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY’?
I was in college then and i was really amazed of barvery of those who dared top speak against the marcoses.
When i started to know the background of Diokno, Enrile, Tanada, Perez (COMELEC), Ver, Salonga, Aquino, Laurel, Tolentino, Mendoza, ( Soc Gen), atty juan t. david,and others, i learned to compare them and concluded by mere of his (Marcos )foes and associates, Marcos was not on the side of history then.
My father used to tell me that during World War II , the native “elite” have the convenience to live in comfort if they chose the side of Japanese militarism. But many took the risk and resisted.
My father’s simple explanation back then was that they ( his fahter-lolo, was a local leader in our province) senses that siding with the japanese military occupiers was like embracing an evil.
My fhHter said they were few for many opted to collaborate. Still they were proved right five years after.
MY POINT. ALTHOUGH IT IS SEEMENINGLY FUTILE TO RESIST THIS REGIME. HISTORY IS ON OUR SIDE.
GOOD WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER EVIL.
NOT CONVINCED?
JUST TRY WHAT I DID BACK IN 1976. STUDY THE BACKGROUND AND CHARACTER OF THE MOST ARDENT SUPPORTERS AND OPPOSITORS TO THIS REGIME AND YOU WILL BE ENLIGHTENED.
DO I HAVE TO ENUMERATE THEM? oK A FEW.
LOZADA AND NERI, BOLANTE AND MARILYN ESPERAT.
i have always been consistent with my position that a radical political change will be counter-productive. it will damage our already battered institutions and will send our economy to further hit rock bottom.
any sufferance of the nation and the people in a period of less than two years under GMA would pale in comparison with the further assault on our political institutions and our economy and the danger of a possible a military putsch.
we should gear towards election reforms via electronic/machine tabulation of the votes to prevent massive cheating and we must educate our citizens of the sanctity of our right of suffrage.
those who are ardent pundits in this blog who seem to know more about history, politics and the economy and had displayed exuberant idealism or frustration over the sordid state of affairs under the present dispensation must establish their own alternative political party and cast their lot in the 2010 elections. only this way we can preserve the ideals of democracy and the concept of government for the people and by the people. our complacency may one day awaken us again under the grip of another dictator, or worst under a military junta.
Marck,
I’m against another Edsa Dos, which I consider synonymous with the kind of abracadabra involving the Military and the Supreme Court that we saw in 2001. I would love to see the Power of Impeachment resuscitated however, because it is the only way we can restore Checks and Balances to the government, when the mere threat of impeachment makes the corrupt quake in their boots and resign even before the charges are actually brought. At the moment the threat of impeachment is assault with a dead weapon, if you don’t have the required one third of the House to begin with.
But failing to get a House initiation, which one would think should be easy enough given that silly one third minority rule, the time before 2010 can be spent not waiting, but preparing the proper evidence and cases to prosecute GMA afer she loses presidential immunity.
I think she can be convicted of plunder, along with JDV, Ben Abalos, FG, and the whole cast of characters of these last almost eight years since much of the evidence and testimony comes from the Supreme Court and/or the Congress.
I am hopeful that in years to come, the Office of the Ombudsman will be occupied by people more like Elliot Ness rather than Merceditas Gutierrez (“see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing”), because in a very literal sense, the Govt has become a Giant Stealing Machine. We need a Tough Cop to rough up the tulisanes and punyeteros in high govt offices.
“Assault with a dead weapon”, woohoo! Luv it, Dean.
Well, Marck needs all the support he can get. A few bottles of Pale can calm your nerves and help you sleep, Marck.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
Handing over our worries to a prospective caudillo will probably worsen things. But those like Marck, all of 23 summers, are expressing their frustration, nay desperation over how the government is run as if we have cigar-chomping mafiosi with an Omerta as their collective shield against public accountability while they raid the national coffers and sell oit the national patrimony… What to do?
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
“Administration preachers” would want the people of our nation to just enjoy our everyday lives in the midst of glaring corruption. Instead of constructively criticizing the age-old culture of dishonesty, they point out the people’s “rebellious” attitude as a major cause of the nation’s misery. They wrongly compared the people’s “uprising” against dishonesty to the Israelite’s rebellious and murmuring attitude towards their leader Moses in the Bible.
There are right and wrong ways of doing things. In our earnest desire to reform our nation, may we not veer and resort to extreme means where they usually lead to the wrong ways laden with traps.
Hope, the only thing that can keep a dead national spirit alive must be kept lit. For when the light of hope is gone, nothing will ever stop the nation from falling in the old same trap again as what happened before.
any sufferance of the nation and the people in a period of less than two years under GMA would pale in comparison with the further assault on our political institutions…
hahaha, jcc, you really think Gloria Arroyo hasn’t assaulted our political institutions well enough already?
…the Govt has become a Giant Stealing Machine.
I dont remember who said the State ‘is a gang of thieves writ large’. Murray Rothbard, I think. All government is a gang of thieves writ large but this one does so with audacity and impunity, unlike the previous ones (save Erap, which did it with swaggering incompetence) which did it with subtlety. This is the government that learned the most from previous administrations.
Jeq,
Government uses people’s money against the people themselves.