Gloria's cesspool of violence

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/5/2006



In the wake of the harrowing experience of the Erap Five, my colleagues in the Edsa Tres movement and crusaders for justice for the oppressed President Estrada are now the targets of violence and more threats of violence. I take it upon myself to make known to the public, without the permission of some of those being victimized as they prefer to deal with it in silence, that Boy Morales and his group has been receiving intimidating communications meant to scare them into submission. All these we blame solely on the criminal gang of Gloria, Mike Arroyo, Chavit Singson et al.

No one is intimidated, if anything at all our movement’s resolve to oust Gloria’s regime of official criminal gangs and violence is further strengthened. Anyway, a regime based on violence is a pushover for our broad mass based crusade based on the call for justice for all Filipinos and for President Estrada as the embodiment of the nation’s victimization. We shall overcome and soon because our weapons of truth, reason, faith and the appeal to other oppressed and victimized sectors and movements of Filipinos is undoubtedly overpowering and always subdues falsehood and injustice.

Already, Gloria’s pogrom to wipe out dissenters and opposition activists that reached a crescendo with the Erap Five abduction and Sotero Llamas assassination is mobilizing an interfaith response calling for an end to the violence, bringing perpetrators to justice, and an end to the roots of this violence – none other that the regime of Gloria and all her machinations to cling to power like the Cha-cha. Gloria is the root of the violence in our society today as her regime was born in violence, and all Filipinos should be reminded of the blood and murder that attended Gloria’s debut during Edsa Tres.

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”, is what Mahatma Gandhi once explicated to the world. Look through the quotation and you will see Gloria in some of the main elements of Gandhi’s deep insight, starting from the last which reflects the underhanded politics of Gloria from the very start and through her vice-presidency to Estrada while plotting with the corrupt generals from Day 1 to illegally grab power.

The rest describes the local and global society today which a good and visionary leadership would and should seek to start changing. We see in almost all religions the lust for power more than sanctity through service; new technologies are churned out but all for profit and none for charity; corporate profit dictates over all in globalization, free trade, liberalization, deregulation and privatization; at no time has knowledge been so available than this age of the Internet dominated by child pornography; and money begets money and leisure here and globally while poverty multiply.

Only a society guided by leadership with vision will see the nation and the people to see through the violence, pain and hunger and rise above it all and aim to liberate itself and the entire country from the entangled roots of violence. Once it was proposed the corporate world is the hope with its “corporate social responsility”– but after Enron in the U.S. or here with Mirant and the Lopezes’ PPA plunder, Yuchengcos’ Pacific Education or the Sobrpeñas’ CAP, they are clearly part of the roots of violence. The leadership for the nation will have to confront these corporate oppressors.

The military and police brass today are among the roots of violence through cowardice of the likes of Senga or outright conspiracy of corruption that the AFP and PNP participants in Edsa Dos are continuously committing. The violence against the Batangas governor cannot be without the participation of the military or police with the C4 explosives used – but that is not surprising, if as they themselves say it is part of a “jueteng war” then how can the PNP or AFP protectors not be involved? Thank goodness for the idealistic young officers who are stirring up the AFP and PNP.

Will the hope come from the CPP/NPA/NDF which has touted its nationalist ideology and “people’s war”? But its engaged in violence itself and not against the real perpetrators of Establishment violence but against the small soldiers and policemen, which alienates it from the vast majority of the people even though its organized force can manage to win a number of party list seats that’s never going to unite the vast majority; it won’t succeed anymore than the INC or Dating Daan factions with their respective millions can hope to dominate the religious scene even in the next lifetime.

A new leadership will arise, and it will be a coalition of leaders, groups, faiths and forces that will understand Gandhi’s insight on the roots of violence, use his non-violent struggle and even use his “civil disobedience” (as some of the Oakwood officers have called for), for that is the only way to unite the people and overwhelm Gloria and her criminal cabal, and smother her violence and greed (including that of the corporatocracy) with love, for the nation, its children and grandchildren, that can propel it to change in the manner that other oppressed societies in Latin America are now liberating themselves.

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