EDITORIAL - Enough of coups or coup rumors

Reports about coup attempts in this country are no longer surprising. Filipinos have come to sort of expect coup attempts to be lurking behind any dark corner waiting for some opportune time to strike at whoever may be the current target of destabilization.

So accepted as a matter of course have coup attempts become, whether actual or merely bruited about, that the source of any information about them no longer adds to the credibility of the reports.

Thus, when the Americans reportedly sent out information to their home country about the possibility of a fresh attempt at a coup against President Arroyo, most Filipinos did not feel any surprise. They, on the other hand, issued a collective groan.

Oh God, here we go again. That is what most Filipinos feel. It is a groan of resignation. Of course Filipinos get scared. They are, after all, still normal people despite the continuing problems that would have driven other peoples crazy.

But more than the fright what might actually happen to them physically, Filipinos are more concerned about the effects of yet another coup on their lives and of the future of their children.

For coups in the Philippines, which is thankfully fragmented geographically into thousands of islands, are often settled quickly in Manila, the seat of power, leaving out the possibility of greater physical threats to more people at a minimum.

But coups can be very telling on the fragile lives of Filipinos who, at this very moment, are already reeling from a huge foreign debt eating into the national budget and escalating oil prices.

For a country that loves to boast about being the showcase of democracy in Asia, the propensity with which coup attempts spring from out of the dark corners of our history certainly renders such boasting without any feet.

For a country so situated, one would have hoped that the armed forces would start reassuming the kind of professionalism that it used to be imbued with and which once rendered the Filipinos proud, instead of being scared or dog tired.