'Let them eat Porsche'

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/17/2011



The Porsche episode in the still early presidential life of Aquino III reflects the culture deep within the heart of this Yellow President — hedonistic, materialistic, uncompassionate, insensitive, and essentially corrupt to the core.

The information reaching us brings up the last item in list of traits that we have written here, because the claim that Aquino III bought the second hand Porsche at a discount with his own money seems clearly to be a lie.

Furthermore, many other major goings-on in the Aquino III government is leading all eyes to that corruption factor — particularly, the major decision of the PCSO to transfer its offices and to turn over Quezon Institute along E. Rodriguez Ave. — that extremely valuable real estate property — to the major backer of the Yellows, the Ayalas. All these are being done while the government is approving massive rate increases in power, transportation, and other fees. Reminds us only too well of the times of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

The remnants of the pro-Arroyo regime are in jubilation over Aquino III’s continuing failures in governance and moral ascendancy, with some saying that “Gloria is at least better in governance.” That is the myth that the pro-Arroyo apologists would like people to believe, and many dumb Filipinos might just swallow this out of frustration with Aquino III’s dismal performance.

The basic fact is still this: Throughout the nine-and-a-half years of Arroyo, the national debt increased beyond the combined borrowings of the previous three administrations; hunger and poverty reached their highest levels; and private sector and government corruption reached unprecedented heights (with P10 trillion going to local Big Business and God knows how much for Arroyo’s coterie). But then, Aquino’s Yellows have nothing to crow about as they are set to match, or even surpass, Arroyo’s nine-and-a-half year-record in a much shorter time.

In our column a few weeks back, we paraphrased historian Arnold Toynbee’s saying that “society starts to decay when it loses its moral fiber and the elite turns parasitic, exploiting the masses…”

Aquino III and Arroyo are both mere political representations of the ruling class, i.e. the parasitic elite ruling families that sit atop the social edifice. In alliance with foreign powers, their rule got re-invigorated in the Edsa I elite counter-revolution against an economically modernizing semi-feudal state, and subsequent to that in Edsa II, where their neo-colonial exploitation accelerated further to stomp the rising populist surge under President Estrada.

Arroyo did her part for the ruling elite in maximizing privatization of power and other public utilities. Aquino III’s ascendancy, meanwhile, was engineered by the ruling powers through “Hocus PCOS” and is now maximizing the squeeze on the people’s capacity to pay by raising all the public service fees and rates massively.

Back to the Porsche: The insensitivity and uncompassionate character of Aquino III shone through like the glitter of the Porsche’s baked enamel. The timing and circumstances of this “purchase,” juxtaposed with Aquino III’s announced string of massive increases in costs for the public, is nothing but an unabashed display of extravagance.

It revealed his absolute lack of empathy with the sufferings of the ordinary folk, as he did during that news conference right after the hostage massacre where he smiled (or sneered) nonchalantly while the all-too-serious subject of the murders was being discussed. This Porsche episode sneers right down on the Filipinos’ faces that are all the more bowed by life’s increasing burdens. To add insult to injury, it is now widely held that the source of that luxury vehicle is a certain Manny Dimaculangan, Aquino III’s architect-friend and presidential foreign trips companion who also has contracts with government.

One can certainly agree with “Walang mahirap kung walang korap.” It partly explains why the ranks of the hungry and poor have grown again as we near the 200th day-milestone of the present government. But it must be said that the corruption endemic to the socio-political system is one which the Yellows instituted after Edsa I, and the situation cannot change until a new popular and national revolution, led by anti-elite and pro-People leaders, is begun.

By such leaders, I certainly do not refer to the NDF or Satur Ocampo, whose welcome for the “$7.5-million compensation for Marcos victims” is coupled with support for the perpetuation of US subversion of our nation’s cultural sovereignty. They also can never be such leaders because they only divide the people, diffuse the anti-imperialist consciousness of the population, and promote the US myth of defending democracies across the globe, while reducing the people’s struggle to an alms-begging exercise.

The revolution will come from a people enlightened by nationalism, in alliance with patriotic officers and soldiers who will rally around that National Economic and Political Development Program. This program, in turn, should be led by those who are dedicated to erasing the moral and economic corruption engendered by the ruling class, the foreign, colonial powers, and their controlled intelligentsia. Only then will the nation not be waylaid from the real enemy — the oligarchy.

The Monsods, for instance, who promote the myth of the credibility of the Feliciano Commission, simply distort the issues of Oakwood to distract the public’s attention away from the elite’s complicity in the corrupt Arroyo regime. Feliciano himself, too, is part of that corrupt system, evidenced by his role in the questionable $50-million lawyers’ fee as chair of the arbitration panel for the NAIA 3 controversy — a very privileged appointment courtesy of Gloria Arroyo again.

The nation should thus spit out the Porsche and ram it down the throats of the corrupt ruling elite instead!

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Fight vs Power Elite Begins” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)