Oust all... make heads roll

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/18/2011



Col. Generoso Mariano, deputy commander of the Naval Reserve Command, declared that the Aquino government “has no capability to save us from hunger and death.”  In that Facebook video dated July 3 he argued, “We soldiers also feel the impact of (the) unrelenting rise in prices of commodities, medicines and food… If this government has no intention or is not doing anything to save the life of the majority, it is the right of every Filipino, including soldiers, to replace the government.  I repeat, replace the government.”  He then exhorted everyone to “once and for all build a nation based on truth for without it there can be no justice, and without justice… no peace and without peace… no development.”  The video, by the way, was posted by a group called “Oust Noynoy Movement!”

While Col. Mariano’s plaints are obvious, his timing leaves some questions: Why only now?  Why not during Gloria Arroyo’s time which was as bad?  And why replace only the government when the whole system is at fault?

Vice Adm. Alexander Pama said Col. Mariano is currently under investigation and confined to headquarters.  Pama must have some inkling of Mariano’s reasons as I am told he, too, was supposed to have joined Gen. Danilo Lim’s military protest in 2006.

Most of you may know that I have supported such military actions in the past--from the Bagong Katipunero’s (or the Magdalo’s) to Gen. Danny Lim’s--because I know of RP’s systemic socio-economic injustice brought about by oligarchic exploitation as well as neocolonial enslavement, which have exacerbated poverty and decay with no resolution at hand.

These ills that demand real solutions are not being addressed at all with the seriousness required, even a year after the present administration has stepped in.  Only palliatives and PR stunts in the form of Conditional Cash Transfers or Public-Private Partnerships are the order of the day while Filipinos continue to be on “Debt Row,” with their basic necessities progressively priced beyond reach--and this, as government is mired in squabbles and ineptitude, apparently oblivious to the erosion of its moral claims by its own KKKs.

Our military friends had already expected Col. Mariano’s move two weeks before it came out.  I was also informed that Mariano, a reserve officer (not a PMAer), had joined the 1989 RAM (Reform the Armed Forces Movement) coup attempt but has since been uninvolved.  When his Marine colleagues such as Gen. Miranda and Cols. De Leon and Segumalian protested in 2006, for instance, he was not among those who were hauled off to detention.

Some speculate that, with his retirement coming up a week after his video came out, among Mariano’s other motives was possibly a missed chance to make the rank of general.  True or not, such timing certainly can’t compare with the incontrovertible sacrifices of the young Bagong Katipunero officers who staked their careers or Gen. Danny Lim who was in line for promotion when he took action.

Having considered all the information, I can say that Col. Mariano’s act still helps the cause of change by calling attention to the crisis in Philippine society and its political-economic morass.  One major shortcoming of Mariano’s declaration, though, is his limiting the blame to the present government--a half-truth that has opened him to be rightly or wrongly interpreted as part of the ploy of the (still) “worst enemy of the Filipino people today,” who has all the reason to create distractions and destabilizations to deflect from the growing crisis she faces.  And this is what other factions of the military are now saying about him.

From my perspective--coming from one who’s rabidly against both the present government and Gloria Arroyo’s forces--Col. Mariano could have been more credible if he had made his analysis comprehensive enough to cover the ills of the entire system, calling for the “ouster of all.”

The present ruling system and the people behind it--or the ruling class, which includes the financial, economic, military, political, and “civil society” elite--thrive on the betrayal of the sovereignty of the people.  They subvert the nation’s sovereignty and economic aspirations by collaborating with foreign interests to perpetuate debt-dependence; the institutionalization of alternating corrupt regimes through coups disguised as “People Power” and rigged elections (Hocus-PCOS); the systematic dismantling of the State through liberalization and privatization; and the consequent elimination of “public welfare,” “public service,” and “national interest,” in favor of “profit” and “corporate welfare.”  Such outcomes are what Mariano described in common-tao terms as the “hunger and death,” which ordinary soldiers also feel.

But shouldn’t he stop to think: Who are behind the present government he despises?  Weren’t the Ayalas, Lopezes, Cojuangcos, the Makati Business Club, the newer oligarchs, “civil society” and its NGOs, the clergy, as well as the US and Britain, along with their respective chambers of commerce, behind Arroyo for as long as they were able to exact their pound of flesh from us?  And aren’t they now behind the present dispensation and massively profiting from us as well?

The Col. Marianos, the Bagong Katipuneros and Para sa Bayan soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and all the impoverished people of this nation should see through the ruling elite’s games, particularly the Noynoy vs. Gloria moro-moro.  In the spirit of Bonifacio’s Revolution, let’s all unite and oust them all--and make their heads roll!

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Franchising: Hope for Economic Recovery”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)