People and principle vs. money

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
8/30/2006



Money quashed the people’s aspiration for truth in the just buried 2006 impeachment. Villafuerte and Lagman were the notable anti-impeachment demagogues. No surprising: GMA appointed the former’s wife to the lucrative Monetary Board and sustains a dynasty with his governor-son allegedly with jueteng; the other lost his Quezon city congressional bid and clings to dear life for GMA’s blessings to continue in his provincial congressional seat today. It may be no accident that the two are both from Bicol where the Andaya (in English, “very fraudulent) highway’s moon craters winds.

Weeks before the impeachment burial rumor was that the members of the impeachment committee had P 10-M each from GMA. As for the plenary, the pork barrel is obviously always a consideration. Many switched, like Dudut Jaworski who said last year that FPJ was indeed cheated; is the cheat then no longer a cheat today? Jerome Paras said to his son that his father was not for sale, was the sign outside the door changed? There’s young Cong. Zubiri who eloquently closed the impeachment obituary saying the divisive issue should end in unity. Unity to sustain to lie?

Even duplicitous anti-impeachment solons can speak a truth or two. Villafuerte took a philological stab at with “dinky-zation” or a word sounding like that to be proposed as synonym to “traitor”. That pun was repeated over radio stations which shows that some anchors found it acceptable, and the public has been chuckling about it. That the public can discern liars even when donning sheep’s clothing; but much of the noise in the impeachment imbroglio was really the clanging of pots against kettles. The perceptive analyst should discern from the impeachment zarzuela the central issue:

The principal Philippine struggle today is of People and principle against money power. “Principle” or “word” is “expression”, it separates man from animals and plants: it is the human soul. When words are used as distortions humanity disappears, as in the case of the anti-impeachment solons misusing words for profit - they reduce themselves to sub-human, exchanging their humanity for money. This tragic infirmity is not limited to politicians; Philippine society is plagued by this infestation. Money is indeed the root of all evil, especially in a culture that accepts that “money makes the world go round.”

Some Filipino religious leaders exchange their souls for Gloria’s envelopes; the Philippine bulok-racy (corrupt bureaucrats), Big Business and financial elite sucks all the country’s money into their pockets that should actually be for the welfare of all in society. This is the money power problem. The Western world is plagued by this too; take this quote from famous American dissenter Ramsey Clark: We’re not a democracy. It’s a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we’re a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.”

Plutocracy: rule of the rich. We’re ruled by the moneyed and not by the principled. How can we have governance abiding by any social contract that is formed by agreed principle and the democratic ideal if what rules is money of the moneyed? If the people rule themselves by way of the democratic “vox populi” we can not but be a principled nation, but the moneyed powers engage in “coup-ruption” as in 2001, paying of generals to depose an elected leader. Since then the country has gone down the precipice of plunder of the plutocrats and “bulok-crats”.

The Filipino Poor is Actually Rich”, retired Gen. Jokumeh writes: “But.....A UNDP report stated that “the Philippine poverty alleviation fund had never exceeded one (1%) per cent of the total budget, and, expenditures on basic social services had only been about 2% of GNP. One (1%) percent of P1.053 Trillion Pesos Y2006 budget (in the Congress deliberation pipeline) is P10.53 billion pesos, when spread out equally among 12M poor households would mean P885 for each household of five members, or, a poverty alleviation budget of P177 (US$3.34) for each poor Filipino for the year 2006.

Let’ take a closer look: A Filipino poor who smokes one P20-pack-cigarette-a-day, will have spent P7,300 in 365 days; will have paid 12% eVAT equivalent to P876 which the government will stand to lose if this Filipino stops smoking. In effect, he pays taxes almost 5 times the P177 allotted by government to lift him out of poverty. But the Filipino consumes not only cigarettes but other commodities subject to ‘sin’ taxes, so he actually pays more than P876 eVAT for which he gets a measly budget of P177 in return….” Only, plutocrats with bulok-crats are plundering him.

The plutocrats and bulok-crats now want the “people’s initiative” and would then enforce use of the rejected Abalos “counting machines”. Those taken by that spiel on voting computer reliability must take a cue from former NASA and Exxon computer programmer Clinto Eugene Curtis who testified before the US Judiciary that he was enlisted by Republicans to create a program to guarantee Bush’s election victory. Link that to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s suit last month against American voting machine makers who integrate “cheaters” into their machines.

Is there any other choice but to take a popular revolutionary, hopefully peaceful, path like many countries in Latin America are now doing to restore people and principle on the throne?

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