Of sedition, honor and glory

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/6/2006



If exposing the truth about an illegitimate regime is sedition, then I am guilty of sedition. If exposing the corruption of a corrupt government is sedition, then I am guilty of sedition. If denouncing Gloria’s lying propaganda as insults to the intelligence of Filipino public is sedition then I am guilty of sedition. If calling for the restoration of the only unquestionably legitimate government of President Joseph E. Estrada mandated by eleven million votes and consequently calling for the ejection of the power grabbing, election-cheating Gloria is sedition then I plead guilty.

I thank bewildered Gloria and her clearly befuddled advisers for the succession of erroneous decisions that have exposed their incompetence, ill-will, power madness leading to utter disregard for the fundamental of law and justice that has fired up the indignation of a nation. In the present case, these Cyclops of power in Malacañang with only an eye for power sees only threats to its hold from any party that questions its and bestows on the most critical, even if small, the honor of being its biggest enemy. I humbly thank Gloria the honor of being place alongside Ninez Cacho-Olivarez and Ike Señeres as a “seditious” writer in a land ruled by lawless power wielders.

The Philippines is indeed a lawless land today for while it banishes unquestionably honorable and courageous Filipinos like Marine Col. Ariel Querubin, awardee of the nation’s highest military Medal of Valor and never once tainted by any questionable act, those whose complicity and guilt in the wholesale robbery of the 2004 elections like Generals Esperon, Habacon, Allaga et al who have had more courage in assaulting the ballot box than the enemies of the state have been rewarded with power and authority – for what? To defend the illegality they helped install?

To the Ariel Querubins of the land we, however, give words of comfort: “Hindi ka nagiisa.” You are not alone, for more and more Filipinos are joining the cause of honor, dignity and genuine law and order. The lawyers’ march last week to Edsa Shrine was an impressive display of honor, integrity and dignity of a profession long disparaged for its practitioners’ lack of firm moral conviction disguise by proficient legalese; but that march to the Edsa Shrine, the face off by the “barong-tagaloged” and “coat-and-tied” compañeros showed that when push comes to shove our legal professionals will stand up for the truth and the righteous.

We salute the law practitioners of the land again, but we will triple our salute if they also take steps to dig out the roots of today’s entangled outgrowths of the Arroyo regime’s illegal impositions on the country. The latest of these illegal impositions is Proclamation 1017 itself, a monster of an issuance that has neither head nor tail, declaring a state of economic emergency but taking political and police action against civil liberties! We should also point out the warning Atty. Alan Paguia explained to us, that within the proclamation is a General Order calling on the AFP to maintain peace and order when the PNP has not been declared insufficient to deal with the problem.

In fact it was only the PNP taking Proclamation 1017 into action, and against idealistic AFP elements and citizens exercising free speech and assembly. Atty. Alan Paguia contends that the General Order is an exercise of martial law, and that has not been lifted by Gloria’s proclamation 1021 “lifting” the state of national emergency. But when has the law made sense since Gloria Arroyo was installed as “acting president” yet became “permanent” after estrada’s resignation was “constructed” to remove him and a “special court” constructed again to imprison him. Since then our Rule of Law was supplanted by the rule of force already, as Supreme Court Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma warned in the wake of Edsa Dos.

The questions of law in Gloria’s ascension to power have come full circle in the sense that among the first to question it was Atty. Sabrina Querubin. She, with Ana Rhia Muhi and Charisse F. Gonzales-Olalia as graduating student then, published locally and in the Journal of International Law and Policy “Legitimizing the Illegitimate” about the Arroyo regime. Everything Gloria has done since her unlamented Edsa Dos power grab is to compensate for that lack of legitimacy, grab whatever chance for legitimizing herself – including spending the national budget and prostituting the Comelec to steal the 2004 elections. Her last chance is the Cha-cha, that her sins against the old swept under a new constitution.

Atty. Sabrina Querubin, who questioned the Davide Supreme Court’s constitutional transgressions, is the niece of Col. Ariel Querubin who joined another honorable soldier, Gen. Danilo Lim’s desire last Feb. 25 to protest the illegitimacy of the present government. Honorable people can not suppress the honorable instinct for truth forever, it had to surface sooner-or-later. If such honorable values and leaders were to dominate our society we would be a very honorable society. The problem is it is the kapalmuks, the shameless tulisanes like Gloria and her ilk, the Esperons, Jabacons, Allagas, et al who hostage that nation under threat of their violence and hurumentado.

At some point soon, honorable indignation and righteous sedition will be glorified by the tables being turned on the tulisanes.

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