An 'Angie Reyes redux'?

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
12/5/2011



The only moment my interest in the ongoing drama between Gloria Arroyo and the Yellow government perked up was when the former’s mouthpiece, Elena Bautista-Horn, broached the idea of a “Put the Little Girl to Sleep” plot brewing--hence, the PeNoy government’s obsession to put the “little girl” in a government hospital where it could be carried out.

At first, I reacted to it as I would to any joke; but on second thought I realized that there are many, many parties who would like to permanently bury their fears of whatever beans GMA may someday spill about them. For starters, there’s a host of oligarchs who used her government to obtain their behest loans and sweetheart deals that were all injurious to the people. There are still more military and police generals, who raked in billions under her watch, dreading the prospect of being exposed. Then, there are the geopolitical twists, which the US fears Gloria can fiddle with to save her hide.

That last notion gained provenance when I saw on the History Channel the feature on the “Ampatuan Massacre” and the manner in which the American producers portrayed Arroyo and stressed her closeness to the Ampatuans. To most Filipinos, this is an obvious fact; but to an analyst of US full spectrum propaganda and cultural warfare like me, this is a significant half-truth.

True, Arroyo depended on the Ampatuans for election engineering, but so did PeNoy’s mother, Corazon Aquino, who was the one who raised the Ampatuans from small-time provincial warlords to full-fledged major ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao) players as a counterfoil to the Muslim politicians of the Marcos era.

We also know from Yellow sources that PeNoy was, in fact, scheduled to visit the Ampatuans for his 2007 senatorial bid just before the massacre took place, and only then--like every other politician who used to beeline to the clan for their vote additions--did he avoid the Ampatuans like the plague.

The bias of US political strategists for the Aquinos and (currently) against Arroyo was evident in the WikiLeaks-obtained e-mails of the US Embassy in Manila to its home office. There, it was shown that the 2005 Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) decision on the distribution of Hacienda Luisita land to its farmers was followed with concern. The embassy also interpreted that order as Gloria’s way of getting back at Cory, supposedly after the latter joined the so-called Hyatt 10’s Arroyo ouster call on July 11 of that year--a move that had all the markings of a US-sanctioned operation. Back then, Arroyo was already getting much too playful with Chinese interests at a time when the “Hello Garci” exposé became too much of a liability for the US-aligned ruling class here.

Before that, things were pretty honky dory between the two: Cory, after spearheading Edsa II, gave Gloria her all-out support through several military mutinies, even raising her hand after the Oakwood incident. In the 2004 polls, they were together in preventing an FPJ win. Later, Gloria gave the Aquino-Cojuangcos military support which led to the Hacienda Luisita massacre.

Despite former US Ambassador Kristie Kenney’s fondness for Arroyo, the US State Department clearly didn’t fancy her anymore midway through the previous decade. Still, none of that constitutes any real possibility that they have any interest to do her in. It’s the domestic elements that have connived and conspired with Gloria where any danger could come.

Just as unseen forces snuffed the life out of PeNoy’s father, Ninoy Aquino, those out to sow chaos by creating a trigger for a major destabilization move or to cover up for a brewing major scandal, may well decide that putting the little girl to sleep would fit their desired scenario perfectly.

On the other hand, it could simply be a case of the little girl wanting to put herself to sleep, seeing that her “castle in the air” has crumbled despite the meticulously planned Aquinorroyo zarzuela and other defense or exit strategies.

But would Gloria Arroyo do an Angie Reyes (assuming Angie Reyes really did himself in)? As far as lawyer and legal icon Alan Paguia is concerned, that case still cannot be closed until all the legal requirements are met (which haven’t). Besides, the supposedly grieving Reyes family is now enjoying a few hundred millions of public money, which they apparently no longer have to account for. But, as the former Edsa II general purportedly took his life due to “honor,” the danger of an Angie Reyes redux for Gloria is diminished since she has none of it.

The only real danger to Arroyo probably will come from what President Joseph Estrada and his senator-son Jinggoy have warned about: The wily rodents at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center.

On a more serious note, these have come out in various international media since our last column “A creeping World War III:” From GlobalResearch, “So concerned has the Kremlin become about the growing American fascist police state it caused General Nikolai Makarov, Russia’s top military commander, to issue a warning to the West last week that the Motherland was fully prepared for a nuclear World War III and which prompted the Obama regime to state that it would immediately cease observing their arms treaty with Russia;” from Prison Planet, “Citing a report by China’s Central Television… an unnamed government official warned (the US and Nato), ‘Any threat to Pakistan is a threat to China’;” and from various news sites, “Chinese General Threatens ‘Third World War’ To Protect Iran… Major General Zhang Zhaozhong commented that, ‘China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third world war.’”

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