Five years of injustice and oppression

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
12/2/2005



Let me be the first to greet you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2006. It’s going to be a difficult season for most Filipinos but we have to learn to make the most of it. Why let Glorianomics get us down, or the “garcification” of the country (the wholesale insult to 84-million Filipinos) frustrate us. Garcification may be followed by “Bolantefication”, which is apparently the next gimmick to follow after Garci’s comedy. Right now, the only means to the much needed change is military action against this clique of felons in power; but even Gen. Danny Lim is reportedly to be exiled already.

The rumored exile of one of the “white knights” of the AFP, Danilo Lim, is designed to remove one of the possible leaders for a reform move from the military. Gen. Lim is said to be scheduled to be appointed to Washington as military attaché or some other post there with similarly fine possibilities. So, we know that the boiling cauldron is still boiling, and this assignment is intended to release stream. General Angie Reyes is also going to that post as the top honcho there – a delicious reward for his abominable betrayal of the people’s trust in 2001.

The fruits of the power grab in 2001 by the clique of felons have been growing for them, very sweet fruits; but for the country and the people there have only been bitter crops after bitter crops as each year passes. Life has been getting more and more desperate for the vast majority of people, Filipinos who are not sucking from Gloria’s and the corporatocracy’s cornucopia of corruption. Reports on the latest Pulse Asia say, “Pulse Asia’s Oct. 15-27 survey showed that 43 percent of 1,200 respondents believe that Christmas this year will be poorer than last year. …58 percent said their personal quality of life next year will likely be worse than this year and 74 percent said the national quality of life will also be worse.”

For many Filipinos the best Christmas gift would be to leave the country, “The desire to migrate also jumped from 26 percent to 33 percent. The sentiment is highest among those in Class ABC (49 percent), those aged 18-24 (45 percent)”, if these people really managed to leave what would be left in the country would be the uneducated and the lumpen. The evidence of Glorianomics’ failure is the 4.1% GDP growth for the third quarter, a dismal rate which her adviser Rep. Joey Salceda tried to put a brave front to. “Respectable”, he says; respectable my ass.

The past five years has seen the country “eat bitter”, as the Chinese saying goes (chia kho); and it is not going to get better for the broad majority of Filipinos unless policy redirection is seen. This, however, is not detectable in the horizon as every facet of our lives is being directed towards the desires of the Washington economic planners and the corporatocracy behind Gloria. The Cha-cha through the Constituent Assembly will see to that, unless the few conscientious senators remain steadfast against it; already, the truth has come out as “business” float the removal of the “protectionist provisions” of the Constitution and downplay any need for the shift to the parliamentary system.

The fate of the nation is been manipulated by these forces and the farces of the Gloria-Garci ilk, because the sovereign will as embodied in the Constitution has been treated contemptuously and kicked around. There is, however, a price even for those who have participated in the blasphemy of our Constitution in 2001. Satur Ocampo knows only too well that price with around 60 Bayan Muna local politician-activists assassinated, yet he is still in a state of denial about the injustice they were part of against the innocent Estrada. While they deny the truth they will continue to pay that price.

Edsa Dos 2001 was the triumph of injustice, a triumph that continues to be reaffirmed as the years pass with the innocent President Estrada wrongfully incarcerated. What is Satur Ocampo talking about when he said “… We want to put closure to the plunder case… whether he is acquitted or convicted as long as it is resolved…We cannot possibly let go of it because we started it and we pushed for it…" How can a biased Sandiganbayan put a closure to the case? We are certain they will convict because they cannot afford to acquit as this will bring down Gloria and her entire caboodle!

Satur Ocampo is a very honorable man but apparently a little weak in the head, or very weak in the head. His colleagues are already paying the price with their lives and the howling grief of their families and he still doesn’t see what they need to do; that is, right a grievous wrong done to an innocent man. That wrong to a single man has translated to the wrongs against 84-million Filipinos, and only the densest of mind will not see the connection of mass oppression and injustice to Erap Estrada’s case. While Satur and company refuse to learn the lesson they will bear the brunt of the karma.

The nation does not deserve the bad karma, that’s why we all must continue the struggle against the oppression and injustice – until we triumph and attain FREEDOM for our nation.

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