Honoring sacrifice

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/5/2006



Fugitive of Conscience Senator Gringo Honasan missed the wedding of two of his children and a graduation rite of another. Being a parent myself and very close to my children I can imagine how sad this can be for Greg who is certainly close to and proud of his children. It must be equally sad for his children, the family and the friends of the Honasans. Did Senator Honasan commit a great malfeasance, or stole money from government or commit murder that he must suffer this? No, he did none of these. The only guilt he has is to lead a movement for peaceful change of a terribly corrupt society.

Major General Danilo Lim, Col. Ariel Querubin and thirty eight other officers plus twenty seven men are facing court martial in the coming days, all for a show of protest and “withdrawal of support” from what Gen. Lim has called the “bogus president” Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. They men who will not be accused of having stolen anything from governmentor any graft and corruption, committing heinous human rights violations, disloyalty to the Constitution’s principles, or any such crimes. They are guilty only of knowing the truth, that Gloria is bogus.

Like Senator Honasan these officers and men will be separated from their families and their mission in life to serve the security of our nation, all for the preservation the lie, prevarication, fabrication that is the Gloria presidency of the country. They are being prosecuted for their loyalty to the principles that make a society honorable, respectable and harmonious – honesty, integrity, loyalty to principles and to the welfare of the people. They are, of course, the latest addition to a long line of military men who have staked their comforts and careers – i.e. the Oakwood young officers, Kawal, et al.

We must not forget President Estrada who is still sacrificing in the struggle for truth, spurning Gloria’s offer of exile to face what has now been five years of incarceration in alternately perilous and depressing conditions. Anytime, President Estrada can be liquidated by Gloria’s minions; and this is the whole point - keeping him hostage especially as charges against him are now demonstrably weak and inutile. Now Estrada has to sacrifice some more for the peace of the land by staying in detention until just before the 2007 elections to prevent him from being a factor.

In contrast is the coterie of conspirators wallowing in the cesspool of corruption, graft, economic exploitation and social decay of Philippine society today, enjoying themselves in Gloria’s pig sty. Gloria and her First Gentleman enjoying themselves in Italy shopping in the expensive stores and playing forbidden games while the country sink deeper into poverty, hunger and debt (in case you missed it, our local debt service increased 45% in the first half and foreign debt rose to $ 55.3-B); and GMA generals Esperon, Calderon et al continue their institutions’ tradition of corruption and jueteng.

The charges being raised by the corrupt Gloria regimes against all those conscientiously resisting this cozy conspiracy of corruption of Gloria will all eventually suffer the same fate as the charges against President Estrada – they will be exposed as sinister, false and betrayals of truth, the Rule of Law and the Constitution. Charges against Gen. Lim and company, for example, will inevitably succumb to the fatal contradiction posed by Gen. Angelo Reyes’ similar act that helped install GMA in her illegal post today – withdrawal of support from Estrada’s government.

This issue of Gen. Reyes’ original “withdrawal of support” will come alive again as the military trial of Gen. Lim starts and GMA’s gang will face the dilemma that will expose the lie to survive on. The nation will realize that the matter of the 2001 theft of the national mandate to Joseph E. Estrada can not be escaped from, can not be evaded no matter what obfuscation the conspirators in Edsa Dos attempt be it Cha-cha, impeachment or the 2007 elections. The ghost of democracy that died in 2001 will not rest until truth and genuine democracy is resurrected.

General Reyes is another character that will go down in the annals of Philippine history as one of the major villains against our democracy, and we will see him in court someday. In Latin America, the violators of human rights and democracy are now facing trial by the governments that have taken over from the fallen dictatorships (for that matter, even the economic managers that sold their country out to foreign interests and financial speculators). Five years have passed and truth has triumphed in Estrada’s case, only a little more and the rest of the truth will surface to overwhelm the liars.

Propaganda efforts by GMA’s gang to besmirch Gen. Lim through one-sided annotations of the video tape of his “withdrawal of support” will not succeed. This ANC anchors who say this is a smoking gun deliberately miss the more fundamental issues, and Senator Biazon is right on the mark when he raised the 2001 “withdrawal of support” as a correlated issue that must be taken into account. Gen. Lim will stand out as a man and soldier of the highest conviction and loyalty to the Constitution and Truth: “Mabuhay siya at silang lahat na naninindigan sa katotohanan.”

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