Repeating the tragedy?

INFOWARS
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/15/2008



One of the saddest things I see in the events following Jun Lozada's exposé is the manner in which some of our society's senior citizens have behaved. I am prompted to raise this at this time because of the news item that headlined: "Ramos still for Arroyo." We often hear that "Wisdom comes with age," but proof that this isn't necessarily true comes in the form of three septuagenrians defending GMA - 77 year-old DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzalez, 73 year-old presidential legal adviser Sergio Apostol and 79 year-old FVR - who have all done a great disservice to the traditional reverence we have for elderly wisdom. Truly, The vast majority of Filipino seniors are not like them.

Wisdom does come with age as we see in the broad embrace of President Estrada's political shepherding to unify the nation, in the indefatigable crusade of political-economist Alejandro "Ding" Lichauco against the inequitable "free trade" economics, in former U.P. president Dodong Nemenzo's continuing dedication to dissent against the unjust social order, in former Vice President Teofisto Guingona's continuing struggle to liberate this nation, in 81 year-old Bishop Labayen's struggle for a "Church of the poor," among many others. These venerable national icons of elder leadership all share one thing - continuing struggle, because the historical truth of our time is "The Unfinished Revolution."

That unfinished revolution is not the People Power revolutions that have twice retrogressed into their horrible realities - fortification of the power of the traditional oligarchy and reinforcement of the neo-colonial status of the Philippines under "free trade" exploitation. That unfinished revolution is the 1896 Revolution that would free this nation and uplift it into a modern, sovereign state. The revolution is not just about corruption, as Ding Lichauco pointed out so succinctly in his article yesterday in the Tribune correcting the Inquirer's editorial bent - the revolution is about freeing the Filipino from the shackles of colonialism in the spirit of Erap's "Walang tutulong sa Pilipino kundi kapwa Pilipino."

Sovereignty is the anti-thesis of "free trade" and "special relations" with any foreign power, but these are two foundations of the Makati Business Club (MBC) cabal's economics. The MBC is now again poised to steal the struggle that patriotic forces have waged the past seven years against their corrupt marionette - Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and they are going at it posthaste because the compradors of the new Chinese economic juggernaut are at their doorsteps. The local oligarchy stole the 1986 Edsa I insurrection and instigated the 2001 Edsa Dos, accelerating their exploitation of the country's wealth as seen in their astronomical corporate profits the past decades, while the country grew poorer.

This historical fact - that the country and the people grew poorer than ever before, even than worse during Marcos' time, while the foreign and local oligarchy grew astronomically richer the past twenty years under the private sector-driven and liberalized, foreign market-dependent economic regimes, belies all their grandiose talk of "restored democracy" after Edsa I and "economic growth" after Edsa II. The tragic fact is, the Philippine has fallen close to the bottom of the Asian economic growth ladder because of this, instead of pursuing the track that the Tiger Economies took - internal development of industrial production and investment in research and development (R&D) like South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, et al.

As Alejandro "Ding" Lichauco recently reminded one and all, the real problem is not simply corruption but subservience to foreign economic diktats and the addiction to just sell raw materials and brawns to foreign markets; but of course, corruption counts because corrupt politicians like Gloria sell the country to the highest bidders while political leaders with an independent will like Marcos, Erap and FPJ were deposed to prevent the consolidation of sovereign attitudes and leadership. Remember to remember that the corrupt FVR and Gloria were set up to take over in cheated elections and power grabs to prevent uncontrollable leaders from assuming power or completing their terms.

Remember to remember how Jaime Zobel de Ayala danced at the corner of the Edsa Shrine at the beaming Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's coronation that January 20, 2001. Gloria is not beaming anymore today but the Ayalas are still dancing all the way to their banks daily as their profits continue to flow into their coffers from Manila Water, which got tax holiday concessions from their little Gloria; from Globe, which got tax breaks transferred to oil, ad nausea. The same goes for the Aboitizes, and we repeat this incessantly to help everyone's memories - who now have a whopping P 19-B from Land Bank transferred to their Union Bank. Of course, there's Enrique Razon which, I need not elaborate anymore.

We are all enthusiastic about the Lozada exposé and will even join the bandwagon rally in Makati today; of course, joining the Edsa Tres forces and "rejectionists" of the Left in their marches, instead of the pro-oligarchs disguised as "civil society." The great masses of middle class professionals' consciousness is limited by their area of competence and are hard put to compete in the labor market to have time away from their Friday night unwinding to dig deeper into issues; most just reach the level of rage against corruption but fall short of seeing the entire picture to find the answer as to why this country continues to deteriorate despite so many crusades against "corruption."

Gloria, FVR and Joe de Venecia are just pawns in the the rivalry of competing geo-political-economic interests. Here's a report from the Executive Intelligence Review entitled, "Shultz's Boys are Running Yet Another Coup in the Philippines":

"Feb. 12 (LPAC) -- Precisely the same nest of scoundrels who served as the flunkies for George Shultz in 1986 and 2001, in carrying out military-imposed regime-change in the Philippines under the cover of "people's power," are now preparing to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who apparently no longer serves their masters'purposes...Gen. Fidel Ramos (Shultz's man on the spot)and...Jose de Venecia...the primary asset of the Heritage Foundation circles in Washington, offering up the Philippines for sale, cheap, to the London-New York speculators, with debt for equity schemes and Constitutional changes to allow the foreign takeover of mining and other industries.

"However, de Venecia and Ramos have now turned on Arroyo, and are joining forces...with an added "anti-China" twist to the affair. The spark was a deal signed by the Arroyo government with China to build an extensive broadband network across the Philippines...This smelled for many reasons, not the least of which being that de Venecia's friends at the Heritage Foundation have always denounced Gloria Arroyo for her ties to China, as part of their anti-China campaign."

Think about this too: Lozada's immediate boss was enigmatic spy chief Victor Corpus - a Mason and CIA-man - although none of these detract from the great service Lozada has done for the country. So how do we avoid the tragedies of history? Turn to the nationalist leashership, that's how.

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