The opposition must stop this folly right now

What have the Filipinos done to deserve a senator like Jamby Madrigal? If she is not publicly humiliating guests invited to endless Senate hearings, she is consorting with communists seeking the overthrow of government.

I am a peace-loving and law-abiding citizen. And I pay my taxes religiously, with no less than P6,000 being deducted from my salary each month as my patriotic contribution for the upkeep of government.

As a government official, Madrigal is accountable to the public in at least two ways - as a representative of the people who draws her authority from an electoral mandate, and a civil servant who draws her salary and other perks like pork barrel from the taxes that people pay.

I can forgive Madrigal for her oppressive behavior toward Senate guests during hearings despite her educated and refined background. She is, after all, a neophyte and has probably not yet gotten used to having awesome political power at her personal disposal.

But I cannot forgive her for sleeping with the enemy. The communists want nothing more than the overthrow of our democratically-elected government and its substitution with a communist regime.

Madrigal belongs to the political opposition. There is nothing wrong with that. The opposition believes President Arroyo is in power on the strength of a stolen mandate and wants her out. Still nothing wrong with that.

But if it wants Arroyo out, it has to stick to available legal and peaceful means to do so. If such means seem closed to the opposition, such as its not having the numbers to wage a successful impeachment initiative, then tough luck but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

Madrigal and the opposition cannot recklessly place the entire country in jeopardy just because they want to get rid of Arroyo. That is no different than burning the house down in order to get rid of a rat.

If Madrigal and the opposition are predisposed to accepting the communist ideological line, then by all means let them come out and make a clean breast of it. We may become enemies, but at least we can respect each other for our beliefs.

But Madrigal and the opposition cannot sing one line two ways. At the very least, that is brazen duplicity spat right at our faces, as if we the people are utterly incapable of discerning what is good, what is tolerable, and what is downright wrong and unacceptable.

When Arroyo invoked some of her awesome powers to protect herself from coup plotters, Madrigal and the opposition quickly accused her of confusing her personal security with that of the state. Fine. To a certain extent, they can hack that argument.

But by forging a tactical alliance with communist leader Jose Maria Sison in the Netherlands, where he is on self-imposed exile, Madrigal and her opposition backers are themselves confusing Arroyo with the state.

The communists are not against Arroyo per se even if she declared an all-out war against them. They are against any head of a democratically elected government. It is the government they want to topple. And when the government falls, so will the people.

What is sad is that the communists are now finding allies in Madrigal and her ilk who are what they are because of the democratic space they enjoy. As a voting and tax-paying citizen from whom Madrigal et al draw their authority and power, I demand they stop this folly right now.