GMA, Her Cohorts, and God's Words

Watching the protesters battle their way through to Mendiola with the police brings back painful memories of martial law under Marcos. Seeing those who battled the dictatorship again being shoved, hit, and even wounded by the police brings the question, is martial law back in our country again? Surely, these protesters will not risk their bodies and life for nothing. Can freedom of expression and assembly be worth fighting and dying for?

Not all are happy about the continuing battles in the streets. While there are students, professionals, and religious among the marchers, there are also students and especially those in business and government who want an end to the street protests and the violence that meet the defiant marchers.

GMA calls those who oppose her "thieves and coup plotters". Why didn't she call them "liars" and "power grabbers"?

Does GMA really think that all of those who demand the truth about her involvement in the last elections as well as in controversial deals and contracts are mere thieves and coup plotters? Don't the Filipino people deserve to be told the truth about election fraud? Don't the Filipino people deserve to know where their public taxes go?

GMA posed for the media and asked all to go back to the task of helping our people who are already suffering so much. But that is precisely the point that needs to be clarified and resolved.

Why are the Filipino suffering more now? Are the growing restlessness and poverty related to the question of the legitimacy of the last elections? Are the deals and contracts entered by GMA and her officials related to the growing impoverishment of our people? Did the huge payments for these deals (Venable, North Rail Project, the Fertilizer Fund and more) take away the salaries for new jobs for the job-seekers, or the promotion and raise long awaited by the deserving workers and employees, or the necessary farming inputs needed by our food producers, or the needed food for the hungry?

If Senate investigates these deals, isn't this independent body doing its job? Is seeking the truth now equivalent to destabilization? If the public demands the answers and clarifications and they march out in the streets to demand for the truth and accountability for these obscure deals and contracts, the protesters are coup plotters who want destabilization?

Would our people prefer to let the deals and contracts proceed without the benefit of public hearing and scrutiny or would Filipinos instead, insist on their right to demand accountability and the truth behind so much public money as well as millions of votes unexplained by GMA, her government, and the military? Can't the Senate and the House proceed with their job of providing checks and balances and demand answers for these public issues from GMA and her executive branch?

Rather than grandstand in Congress or protest in the streets, GMA and her cohorts invoke the mantra of the rule of law, rather than the rule of truth, the rule of transparency. Perhaps it is timely to remind GMA and her cohorts about these words from God written in Luke 11 and 12:

"How terrible for you teachers of the Law! You have kept the key that opens the door to the house of knowledge; you yourselves will not go in, and you stop those who are trying to go in... Be on guard against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees - Whatever is covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known. So then, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in broad daylight, and whatever you have whispered in private in a closed room will be shouted from the housetops."

How consoling to know that God is faithful to His words and in and with Him, there is always hope for all!