The World According To John Rae the Great

Good one, Mr. Austero, whoever you are.
==============================================

Dear Tita Cory, Senators, Congressmen, Businessmen, Media
People, Leftists, and all Bleeding Hearts Out There:

I am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are angrier
than I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple. I am sick
and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for me and many Filipinos. I feel
like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for my freedom
and my rights, when you obviously are just thinking about yours. You
tell me that the essence of democracy is providing every citizen the right
to speak his or her mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you
yourselves do not respect my silence and the choices I and many
others have made.

In other words, your concept of democracy is limited to having your
rights and your freedoms respected, at the expense of ours.

I am utterly flabbergasted that you still do not get it: we already
responded to your calls, and our response has been very clear - we
chose not to heed your calls to go to EDSA or to Fort Bonifacio not
because we do not love our country or our freedoms or our rights, but precisely
because we love our country even more. Because quite frankly, we are prepared to
lose our freedoms and our rights just to move this country forward.
You may counter with your ideological propaganda and give me all the dire
warnings about the evils of Martial Law, authoritarian rule,
suppression of freedom, etc., but quite frankly all we see is your pathetic efforts
to defend your right to continue fulminating, filibustering, and sabotaging this
country until you wrestle power for yourselves.

You tell me that you are simply protecting my freedoms and my rights,
but who told you to do that? I assure you that when I feel that my
rights and my freedoms are at a peril, I will stand up and fight for them
myself.

I have done that in the past, and I will do it again when I SEE THE
NEED FOR IT, not when you tell me to do it.

You tell us that GMA is not the right person to lead this country
because she has done immoral acts. As someone who sees immorality
being committed wantonly in many ways every day and by everyone (yes,
including the ones you do), I may have become jaded. I may have lowered my standards
about what a leader should be. Guess what, Tita Cory, you lowered it yourself.
When I accepted your incompetence and fought for you during the many
attempts against your government, I already lowered the standards to
ridiculous levels. Guess what, Senators and Congressmen, you lowered it
yourselves when you ran for office and won and now make fools of yourselves in
the august halls of congress.

But the simple truth that you try to obfuscate is this: you have not
been able to offer me any viable alternative! On the other hand, GMA
has bent over backwards many times to accommodate you while continuing to work
hard despite all the obstacles and the brickbats you have thrown her
way.

From where I sit, she is the one who has been working really hard to
move this country forward while all of you have been so busy with one and
only one thing: to make sure she does not succeed. So forgive me if I do not
want to join you in your moral pissing contest. Forgive me if I have
chosen to see things from another perspective. You say she is the problem. I
say, we are - all of us is the problem; more to the point, I think you are a
bigger problem than she is. Taking her out may solve part of the problem,
but that leaves us with a bigger problem: you. That is right, YOU!

While I felt outraged that she called a Comelec official during the
elections and that she may have rigged the elections, I have since
then taken the higher moral ground and forgiven her. Yes my dear bishops,
I have done what you have told me to do since I was a child, which you
say is the Christian and moral thing to do: forgive. Especially since she
has asked for forgiveness and has tried to make amends for it. Erap certainly
has not apologized and continues to be defiant, continuing to insult us
everyday with his protestations - and he is part of your cause now! Cory has
not apologized for her incompetence but we have forgiven her just the
same because like GMA, she has worked hard after all.

I know you do not think that GMA’s apology was not enough, or that
she was insincere, or that that apology should not be the end of it, but
please spare me the hypocrisy of telling me that you do so for the sake of
protecting the moral fibre of society. The real reason is because you
smell blood and wants to go for the kill.

Well, I have news for you. I do not like her too. I did not even vote
for her. I voted for Raul Roco. But as much as I do not like her, I
do not like you even more. I may not trust her, but you know what, I do not
trust you even more.

You know why I do not trust you? Because all you do is whine and
sabotage this country. You belittle every little progress we make,
conveniently forgetting that it is not just GMA who has been working so hard to
achieve them. Every single day, we keep the faith burning in our
hearts that this country will finally pull itself out of the mess and we work so
hard to do that. Every little progress is the result of our collective
effort, we who toil hard everyday in our jobs.

Yet, you persist in one and only thing: making GMA look bad in the
eyes of the world and making sure that this country continues to suffer to prove your
sorry point. In the process, you continue to destroy what we painstakinly try to build. So please
do not be surprised that I do not share your cause. Do not be surprised
that we have become contemptuous of your antics. You have moved heaven and
earth to destroy her credibility, you have convened all kinds of fora and
hearings and all you have done is test our patience to the core. For
all your efforts, you have only succeeded in dragging us further down. I say
enough.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not asking that we take immorality lying
down, or that we let the President get away with anything illegal. But you
have tried to prove your accusations all these time and you have not
succeeded, so it is time to let things be. Besides, you are doing something
immoral as well if not utterly unforgivable. The Magdalo soldiers are
consorting with the communists - the same people who have been trying to kill
democracy for years. Cory has been consorting with Erap and the Marcoses.

So please wake up and take a reality check. In the absence of true
and genuine moral leadership, many of us have decided to cast our lot
with the President, even if we do not like her. A flawed leader is better
than scheming power hungry fools who can not even stand up for their
convictions in the face of an impending arrest.

Your coup attempts and the denials that you have consequently made
only underscore what we think is true: you are spineless and unreliable
people who only want power but not the consequences and the
sacrifices that go with the quest. Your one and only defense is to cry suppression when
your ruse does not work. You are nothing but BULLIES who taunt and
provoke, but cry oppression when taken to task for your cruelty. You call for the
rule of law and respect for authority, but so brazenly display your defiance
and disrespect for the same things you claim to be fighting for.

I would have respected you if you took the consequences of your
actions like real heroes: calmly and responsibly instead of kicking and
screaming and making all kinds of lame excuses. You say you are willing to die for
us, that you do all these things for the country and the Filipino, but
you are not even willing to go to jail for us.

Come on, you really think we believe that you did not want to bring
down the government when THAT IS THE ONE AND ONLY ONE THING THAT YOU HAVE
BEEN DESPERATELY TRYING TO DO in the last many months?

We love this country and we want peace and progress. Many among us do
not give a f*&k who sits at Malacanang because we will work hard and
do our share to make things work. We the people will and can make it work,
if only you get out of the way and let us do it. If you only do your
jobs, the ones you are supposed to be doing, things would be a lot simpler and
easier for all of us.

The events during the weekend only proved one thing. You are more
dangerous and a serious threat to this country than GMA is. We have
seen what you are capable of doing - you are ready to burn this country and reduce
everything to ashes just to prove your point. If there is something
that we need protection from, IT IS PROTECTION FROM YOU.

_____________
S. C. Austero

Shame
FIRST PERSON By Alex Magno
The Philippine Star 02/28/2006

They were like flies buzzing around excrement or vultures hovering around a carcass.

I refer to the likes of Cory Aquino, Ping Lacson, Teofisto Guingona, Imee Marcos, that irredeemably angry head of the La Salle brothers, that group of resigned Cabinet officials that has become so nondescript they continue to be named after a hotel and the limelight-hungry lawyers from a minuscule leftist faction. Obsessed with re-creating the 1986 Edsa Uprising, they convinced themselves that a minor spat at the Philippine Marines was the beginning of yet another pointless upheaval.

When the Marines sorted out the misunderstanding late Sunday night, the washed-out political personalities who gathered at Fort Bonifacio – always within tight camera range – quietly slithered into the darkness, hoping the public would soon forget the great farce that just happened.

They had, plainly and simply, made complete fools of themselves in their gallant effort to make fools of us all.

Sunday’s drama was a useless expenditure of time, energy and passion.

From what could be gathered as of this writing, the tiring drama last Sunday began when the Navy Flag Officer in Command relieved the Marine Commandant, Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda. That was, from the looks of it, a prudent move. The information gathered about the quashed coup attempt, it appears that a group of soldiers were supposed to have made an appearance before the gathered horde at Edsa. Their withdrawal of support from government was supposed to be announced by a Marine general.

The relief would have been a routine administrative act. Miranda’s deputy, Brig. Gen. Nelson Allaga, was initially issued orders to assume the post of commandant in an acting capacity – probably an indication that Miranda could be returned to his post after he was cleared of the derogatory information against him.

The trouble began when a bad-tempered and severely voluble Marine colonel, Ariel Querubin, began publicly denouncing the replacement of his commandant. That attracted media attention – as well as the flies who began hovering around Marine headquarters.

Out of nowhere, Sanlakas lawyers Argee Guevarra and JV Bautista emerged, announcing themselves "volunteer lawyers" for the hopping mad colonel. The two leftists then began trailing Querubin around the camp, forming a funny human chain around him, sticking their faces into camera range to make sure history will record their heroism, and probably convincing the colonel, during a moment of temporary insanity, that he was more important than he actually was.

Soon enough, the angry colonel piped down. His ruffled wife later admitted they did not know the two leftist lawyers, Guevarra and Bautista.

While he was hopping mad, encircled by the Sanlakas lawyers, Querubin (who had a rebellious history as co-founder of the Young officers Union) admitted to being part of the plan for soldiers to make an appearance before the mammoth anti-government rally planned for last Friday (and dispersed by the timely proclamation of a state of emergency). That seems to be a career-ending admission.

It was an admission that raises so many questions.

Why was Cory Aquino aligned with the very same officers who mounted bloody coup attempts against her presidency – coup attempts that led her down the same path of proclaiming a state of emergency?

Why was her son, Noynoy, who was nearly killed during the 1989 coup attempt, now supporting the exact same sort of military adventurism?
Why was Imee Marcos now allied with the same forces that overthrew her late father and terminated a hated dictatorship?

Why were the leftist groups, in effect, supporting the projected establishment of a military junta that would, in all possibility, shoot them down more readily than the democratically accountable government we now have in place?

Why are the members of the so-called Hyatt 10, instigators of what is so ingloriously called Edsa Dos, now aligned with the generally rented pro-Estrada mob?

I have difficulty answering all such queries posed by foreign observers. My standard reply consists of only two words: despair and opportunism.

Sunday’s farce unraveled as soon as it began – but not evidently enough for the worn-out political personages gathered at Fort Bonifacio to avert making fools of themselves.

In the end, the only question left badgering the public mind was: What was that all about?

I have a flood of e-mails from friends abroad who are reacting to the unavoidably over-dramatized television footages from Manila. They, by and large, pose that same question in a more painful way: As the world rushes aid to the victims of the Leyte landslide, why are the political players of Manila more engrossed with power grabs?

For years, foreigners have suspected Filipinos of being congenitally doomed to shoot ourselves on the foot at the first sign of impending success over adversity.

Since the start of the year, the peso has strengthened dramatically. The economy is beginning to roar. Large-scale investments are being negotiated.

Our prospects appear too bright for the forces of despair to handle. They must plot coups and invite the proclamation of a state of emergency. They must raise a ruckus in the streets to scare away tourism and investments.

By making fools of themselves, obsessed with their own inexplicable hatred for a sitting president, they succeed only in making all of us look like a nation of fools. They succeed only in diminishing the possibility that misery could be reduced and prosperity guaranteed within the foreseeable future.

To this steady stream of disturbing questions posed by the flood of e-mails I get, I can only answer with one word emphatically repeated thrice: Shame, shame, shame!