Opposition should stop equi-VAT-cating

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/17/2005



Sorry, but I couldn’t help the pun. Watching Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo equivocate between pushing the full E-VAT and holding back, postponing and delaying; and then reversing again to declare her total support for its immediate implementation clearly show she’s equivocating to survive. Each moment she relents a new threat arises arise, from the Hyatt 10, Cory Aquino’s widening of her campaign and, lately, serious talks of the final coup move. Gloria knows, however, that the economy and the population won’t be able to absorb the hurricane impact of such a huge increase in prices.

The opposition is also caught in the horns of a dilemma, faced between temptations of inviting the Hyatt 10 to integrate with the mainstream opposition and muddling it image in the eyes of the people; or staying true to the cause of the people and its welfare. The Hyatt 10 is for the E-VAT, under a mix of sycophancy to its foreign benefactors who do not hide their obsession to win the EVAT and the group’s own mix of ambitions and opportunism (prodded by Purisima and Franklin Drilon) it abandoned Gloria’s ship hoping for a quick capture of power. Cory obliged by championing them.

The mainstream opposition knows it has only one political capital– the peoples’ rage against Gloria whom it correctly blames for their increasingly intolerable economic burdens. It has its share of opportunists and trapos old and young, and that’s why it’s caught in a dilemma brought about by incorrigible conviction that politics is addition. The forget that subtraction can be added to addition to end up with a minus, and unless the Hyatt 10 are genuinely converted to share the cause of the people then that bunch will betray the opposition cause.

This column never equivocated on the need to crystallize the real issues and polarize the political situation. The issue is the people’s welfare, yours and mine, of every Filipino now suffering from the political-economic policies of neo-colonial and local feudalistic-corporatocratic exploitation. Was that a mouthful of ideological vituperations? They are just convenient terms to condense the idea that the country is in the grips of plunder and cannibalism of the international financial and Big Business vultures, a condition that accelerated with the triumph of Edsa Dos.

The real issues must be crystallized, to educate it must be repeated often. The unmitigated exploitation and oppression the people suffering is a result of the collapse of the Rule of Law and conquest by the rule of force. While Edsa Dos’ violations prevail the protection to the people provided in the basic law of the land our Constitution, is disregarded with impunity. Article II, Section 4 provides: “The prime duty of the Government is to serve and protect the people.” The people feel no protection or service from Gloria’s government.

The Ayalas, Lopezes, Pangilinan, the Aboitizes, the U.S. and other foreign embassies and represenatatives, foreign businesses, etc. feel Gloria’s protection. Gloria actually reports to her Board of Foreign Economic Advisers consisting of the big bosses of the CIA and Wall Streets vultures like Maurice “Hank” Greenberg (Sycip, Virata, Yuchengco, Cuisia et al’s boss), Mirant’s Marce Fuller (raking in billions from three IPPs here), Bosworth and Wisner (CIA and former ambassadors to the R.P.) among others. When Gloria reports to the people in her SONA she lies.

Almost all the parties to the anti-Gloria campaign now want the conveniently reduce the issue to just Gloria, but in that simplification lies a potential fatal flaw. Gloria could co-opt the real issue, just as she tried to do with EVAT by postponing and delaying it. Then comes the final threat before Gloria’s congressmen such as Joey Salceda finally freeze the EVAT, prodding Gloria to restate her support for EVAT again. Meanwhile, the mainstream opposition gets a bit lost in the maze because most of them, vision blurred by ambition, have none of that moral compass – the Rule of Law.

Let us restate the two issues that the true opposition stands on that insures victory: the restoration of the Rule of Law and genuine socio-political-economic change. Rule of Law is not that of Cory Aquino who wants the unconstitutional and constructed amendments by Supreme Court legislation to be followed and have Noli de Castro installed; the original is the only true one in which 10.7-M Filipinos voted and had a president, Joseph E. Estrada. Unless that happens the wellspring of our nation’s laws is poisoned and we shall continue to be cursed.

When genuine Rule of Law is restored then genuine social reforms can peacefully proceed. The institutions despoiling our country must be cleaned up immediately, i.e. the Comelec and the Judiciary. The basis for recovery must be laid, starting with the remedies to the unjust foreign debt as top priority. Oolitical institutions must be cleaned up and billions wasted to corruption now preserved. President Estrada is the focal point of all these, his innocence must already be declared after four years of fruitless prosecution.

Respect for the 10.7-M undisputed victory of Estrada must be restored, even briefly to resolve the hiatus and begin assigning caretakers for new elections. The Rule of Law and Welfare of the People are supreme; the opposition should stop equivocating. No more equi-VAT-cating, isolate and annihilate Gloria and the Hyatt 10.

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