Philippine tragi-comedy

INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/17/2008



These days, I laugh and cry alternately, like a madman. I laugh because Edsa Dos and Gloria Arroyo have gotten their just and painful deserts. But I cry
because the Filipino people have once again lost more in the struggle to oust the corrupt Gloria, installed by the same people who are now pretending to
lead the anti-corruption campaign against her. The patriotic and nationalist movement has gained some and lost some, with the balance slightly favoring the
positive. The big winner is the Anglo-U.S. tandem that instigated this Vic Corpus-Jun Lozada caper; the tandem retains its monopoly of knowledge of what and where the Philippines' submarine resources lay while leaving the Chinese bruised and
hurt--which ought to teach the latter a thing or two about dealing with corrupt regimes their adversaries install.

Many Filipinos were focused on the latest Leo San Miguel twist in the Senate as the ZTE story spun into a second phase – the China-bashing. The U.S. Embassy must now be laughing all the way to its group's newest oil digs in the Visayas and claims around its adjoining seas. A thousand and seven hundred kilometers down South in the Sulu islands of the Philippines, the American forces are now swarming all over it like a new protectorate of the U.S., according to our compatriots there. The great chess game across this great swathe of the Asia-Pacific is accelerating with the visit of U.S. Ambassador Kenney to MILF chief Murad Ebrahim last February 19 highlighting it – reminding me of my column a year ago, "Kosovo in Mindanao".

Meanwhile, the National Democratic Front organizations, namely Bayan, only managed to portray the paucity of their leadership of the anti-Arroyo movement by conducting a rally last Friday that showed how weak it is in shepherding the opposition forces. Even if it was joined by the conservative Catholic Church leaders who helped put on a number of shows on stage; what I saw and heard in that portion where a choir was singing "Kumbaya" (a song sarcastically depicted in movies and skits to connote a blandly pious and naively optimistic view of the world and human nature) left me depressed. If you know the lyrics you will see its inanity at once. Just check it out on the Internet and drown in its oozing mush, which is all right for a Girl Scout bonfire--but at a protest rally? C'mon, c'mon.

Honestly, I perceive that the Catholic Church is only in the anti-Gloria movement to dissipate it, not to escalate its power and militancy. From Day One of “Hello Garci” to the present ZTE exposé, it has not moved an inch to pressure for an early "retirement" of this corrupt regime – only now to end with their collective call, contained in the pastoral letter issued by Archbishop Angel Lagdameo on February 27 to give Gloria all the time to continue the cover ups. The letter has been publicly and heartily welcomed by Malacañang. If the truly progressive bishops want to help achieve any real change in this country, they will have to do it outside of the CBCP
which as an institution will always bow to the Papal Nuncio directed from Rome by Pope Ratzinger.

While some Catholic Church leaders have said "mea culpa" for their 2001 misdeed that inflicted Gloria on the nation, they have not proposed any real solution. It's singing "Kumbaya" while the bonfire is burning the country down. Their traditional allies are doing the same thing too, like the Jesuit Bernas and International Finance Corporation and World Bank exploitation agent, Christian Monsod who have also said "mea culpa"--admitting their error in 2001's Edsa Dos, yet asking the public to just trust them and just go by the present Constitutional process. What they do not say is that their Constitution of today is a travesty of THE real Constitution, an adulterous marriage contract of an illegal second marriage without the annulment of a first marriage.

The broad masses, as well as the middle class and students are not being taken in by these diversionary tactics. Note that very few masa joined the Liwasang Bonifacio rally last Friday and the students arrived mainly during the jamming portion of the rally as evening approached. The Edsa Tres came only in token numbers, while the Laban ng Masa was completely shut out. The Black and White didn't appear but their members represented by Leah Navarro and Boy Saycon, constituting an entire ten percent of the full force don't even matter. What people should look forward to is the Edsa Tres rally that will knock all of them down this coming April. That will be a resounding statement from the masa.

I am taking a philosophical attitude to the goings-on in the political front at this time. There’s a lull in the struggle brought about by the realignments from the February 29 mass rally in Makati. Some key leaders have in their own way found the wisdom in the strategy of "crystallizing and polarizing" that I have advocated all this time. Let the Bayan Muna and the Catholic bishops do their thing, but let the genuine opposition representing the masa reverberate by its own actions and its own voice. Echo what was declared at Edsa Tres – Poor People Power. Let the genuine issues ring out - exploitation of power, water and other public utilities by big corporations; the hunger and poverty; the violation of the people's right to choose their leaders, especially when this runs counter to the elite's wishes.

The link between the mundane hunger issues and the higher plane of geopolitical events needs to be established, to awaken the nation to the tragic-comedy; but there is no cooperation from the oligarchy-controlled media, the Church and the bureaucrat-controlled educational system. These vital national insights need to be impressed on the national consciousness: (a) Anglo-U.S. imperialism and Chinese expansionism can only be resisted with a zero-greed nationalist government; and (b) Philippine sovereign development is imperative if the nation is to survive the oligarchy-engineered and accelerating global political, energy and food crises. The shortest route to achieving national transformation is the emergence and acceptance of a nationalist vanguard leadership to jiu-jitsu the system (as what has been done in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador). The good news here is that that force already exists - the Bagong Katipunero movement and the patriotic civilian leadership.

Philippine political moods rise and ebb through three annual seasons, the next high tides are in May-June and July-August. Let us look forward to escalate the pressure for change again. Meanwhile, let the Holy Week vacation be an opportunity for consolidation for the next intensification of the struggle.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Kape't Kamulatan, Kabansa, Mon. to Fri., 8:30 to 9:00am)