EDITORIAL - Anarchy

The Department of Agriculture turned red yesterday, as militant groups stormed the main DA office to demand the resignation of President Arroyo and protest the appointment of Domingo Panganiban as the new secretary of agriculture. Terrified DA employees sent out an SOS to the police after hundreds of protesters entered the building and started smashing windows and doors and vandalizing the portraits of previous DA secretaries. The protesters festooned the building with red streamers before they were forcibly driven out by DA guards. At least 10 people – protesters and guards alike – were injured in the melee, with at least two rushed to a hospital for treatment.

What were the protesters’ other grievances? The usual: allegedly anti-poor agricultural policies, the country’s free trade commitments. Panganiban, who replaced Arthur Yap, wasn’t even in the premises; he was taking his oath at Malacañang.

There are in fact global trade policies that need review; farmers even in industrialized countries including the United States and France are unhappy with agricultural policies imposed under international trade agreements. Those disputes, however, are settled through the negotiating table, and not by storming a government building whose employees are almost all ordinary salaried people just trying to get their day’s work done. Those damaged doors and windows will require precious taxpayers’ money to repair, but obviously that was of no concern to the protesters.

Around the world communism has been revealed as a bankrupt ideology. The few remaining holdouts hardly inspire any revival of communism: North Korea is a failed state, China is embracing capitalism, and Vietnam and Cuba are cautiously moving in a similar direction. The faces of communism in this country hardly inspire confidence either: Jose Ma. Sison is begging the Dutch for asylum and the resumption of his welfare benefits, while Gregorio Rosal is a big believer in justice, communist style, through a kangaroo court.

And yet organizations waving red banners still proliferate. Lacking examples of successful communist states, they hijack legitimate causes – such as the valid concerns of workers in the agricultural sector, and public discontent with President Arroyo – and use these to foment violence and social unrest. They were the winners in yesterday’s violence at the DA. The loser was the nation; the last thing the country needs at this time is anarchy.