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GMA's Health, Failure of Opposition - and Coup of the Generals? ================= ================= ================= Has Revolution Now Become Necessary? ================= ================= ================= Filipinismo, the True Filipino Ideology ================= ================= ================= ================= ================= ================= Magna Carta of Social Justice and Economic Freedom ================= |
GMA's Health, Failure of Opposition - and Coup of the Generals? Alejandro Lichauco, Tribune, August 3, 2006 Two factors have revived previous talks and expectations of a coup — this time a coup of the generals rather than a coup of junior officers. The first factor has to do with speculations over the health of GMA following her latest confinement at St. Luke’s which in turn followed a previous confinement barely a month ago. There must be something wrong, so observers conclude. The second factor has to do with the failure of the political opposition to get its act together and reach a consensus on just who is to be the opposition leader, the Moses who will lead them out of the land of bondage into the promised land. The opposition doesn’t have a Ninoy, or a Cory or even a GMA around whom to rally. There’s only Noli de Castro and he doesn’t represent an alternative because he is deemed part of the GMA machine with whom the opposition can’t possibly identify. Besides, he suffers from the same handicap that has plagued GMA, and that has to do with charges that he was part of GMA’s supposedly cheating machine. Why should these two factors trigger a revival of coup talks? One reason has to do with the pervasive economic crisis that grips the land. That crisis, marked by widespread poverty and rising hunger, massive unemployment and extortionate prices of basic commodities, cries to high heavens for a solution and the opposition doesn’t have any. It has neither a program nor a leader. The opposition hasn’t, for example, presented any cohesive program to combat high prices, widespread unemployment, and extensive homelessness. A program which would differ fundamentally from what GMA offers. As for a personality around whom the opposition can rally, that personally evaporated with the death of FPJ and there isn’t any other personality in sight on whom the opposition seems prepared or willing to unite. The closest alternative to FPJ is, of course, the fallen Erap. But while Erap commands a hold on the masses which none of the political opposition can possibly match, he doesn’t seem anywhere as acceptable as FPJ was to the political power brokers. Opposition leaders still have to unite around him, and until they do, he remains essentially a non-factor insofar as an alternative to GMA is concerned. And it’s difficult to see how the political opposition can unite behind one who remains fundamentally unacceptable to the Church and civil society, the very elements who inspired Edsa II and Erap’s ouster in the first place and who aren’t prepared to admit that they committed a mistake in crying for Erap’s ouster. Why then would these factors lead to expectant talks of a coup of the generals should talks about GMA’s supposed serious health condition prove justified? The reason is that people have gotten tired talking about a coup of junior officers. Much hope had once been pinned on idealistic and patriotic junior officers to get the country out of the mess, out of the political crisis and out of the economic crisis as well. But after more than five years of such talk, hope and even expectation, nothing has happened and nothing seems about to happen. The junior offers, as a class, simply don’t seem to have what it takes to do a Nasser or a Hugo Chavez. And yet, as the social and economic crisis deepens and civilian despair becomes widespread, popular opinion is bound to turn increasingly to any potential alternative to the GMA government, irrespective of the nature of that alternative. At this juncture, in the face of the failure of both the political opposition and the junior officers to live up to popular expectation, the choice is bound inevitably to focus on the generals. What Danny Lim has shown is that deeply flawed and corrupt as the generals might be as a class, there still exists within that class certain redeeming elements, such as Lim; and that being so, if the people want any change at all they must be prepared to gamble on the generals and simply hope against hope that out of the ranks of that class, the redeeming elements in the military might just possibly emerge. And so it shouldn’t surprise that talks of GMA’s supposedly serious health condition should trigger a revival of coup talks, this time of a coup staged by the generals instead of, as had been long but vainly hoped for, a coup of junior officers who increasingly appear to their civilian sympathizers as without the qualities of those who would overturn the political establishment.
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The school of suffering tempers; the arena of combat strengthens the soul. I do not mean to say that our freedom is to be won by the blade of the sword; the sword enters very little now in modern destinies, yes, but we must win it, deserving it, raising the intelligence and the dignity of the individual, loving the just, the good, the great, even dying for it, and when a people reach that height, God provides the weapon, and the idols fall, the tyrants fall like a house of cards and liberty shines with the first dawn...
Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours, their illusions, and enthusiasm for the welfare of their country? Where are they who would generously shed their blood to wash away so much shame, so much crime, so much abomination? Pure and spotless the victim has to be for the holocaust to be acceptable!... Where are you, youth who will incarnate in yourselves the vigor of life that has fled from our veins, the purity of ideas that have been soiled in our minds and the fire of enthusiasm that has been extinguished in our hearts?... We wait for you, O youth! Come, for we await you!" Gat Jose Rizal (Padre Florentino, El Filibusterismo) ===============
"Reason tells us that we must not waste our time waiting in vain for promises of felicity that ill never come, that will never materialize. Reason tells us that we must rely upon ourselves alone and never entrust our rights and our life to anyone else. Reason teaches us top be united in sentiment, thought and purpose, so that we may acquire the strength necessary to crush the evil that is affecting our people...
Therefore, o my countrymen! Let us scatter the mist that befogs our intellect, and let us consecrate all our strength to the good cause, with unshakable and absolute faith in its success, and in the ultimate prosperity, so anxiously desired by us, of the land of our birth."
Gat Andres Bonifacio ===============
"Do not recognize the authority of any person who had not been elected by thee and thy compatriots, for all authority emanates from God, and since God speaks in the conscience of each individual, the person designated and proclaimed by the individual consciences of a whole people is the only one who can wield real authority...
A revolution may be conducted against a national government, if such a government has abused the power placed at its disposal by the people, with the purpose of having injustice administered, by using this power to drown out the public voice and at the same time to administer to its own convenience or caprice...
Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!...
If the people are with us, we can rest assured that if we do not triumph today, we shall do so tomorrow or after tomorrow. If they are not with us, we shall be decimated.
Apolinario Mabini ===============
A man's worth does not consists in being a king, or in having a pointed nose and a white skin, or in exercising as a priest the office of being God's representative. It does not consist in being one of the great ones of the earth. What though a man be born and raised in the wilderness, and speak no other language but his own? If his ways are gentle, if his word is true, if he cherishes his good name, if he neither tolerates nor commits injustice, if he knows how to love the land that gave him birth and to come to her assistance, that man is really and truly great." Emilio Jacinto =============== |
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