One fundamentally enlightening and sound book I read more than two decades ago was John Dunn’s “Modern Revolution”. I referred to it extensively in a topic discussion in my class in Legal Philosophy then, and allowed my students to grapple with acceptable legal theories in the light of its lessons. Although somehow antiquated, some derivative teachings there are still worth recalling.
I. In a society where those in power are perceived to be fair, just and honest, the contented majority, with less urging by the administrators, keeps the opposition in check. There will always be critics to governors and the sharpness of their views is useful scalpel in cutting away the decayed parts of governance. But, their advocacies, a euphemism for criticisms, will be limited.
II. When those in charge of the government are viewed to be serving their own selfish interests to the detriment of the greater mass of the constituency, their misdeeds are the roots of unrest. Each time there is an act done which is perceived by many as inimical to common weal, it breeds a rebel. Thus, revolutions arise out of the excesses of administrators.
III. The fate of revolutionaries is always tied with the end result of their movements. When revolutions succeed, especially heavily contested and bloody conflicts, their leaders naturally ascend the seats of power and, even by that stroke of victory alone, erase the stigma of lives lost. Then, as the great majority of the people sing praises and jostle around them, these newly crowned power wielders hunt, like crazy packs of hungry wolves, the remainder of their opponents to obviate the chance of a counter-revolution.
On the other hand when revolutions fail, their leaders face the guillotine and their followers scamper in all directions to prevent the dragnet from hauling them back to suffer the dire consequences of their “audacity”.
The action of Sen. Trillanes, few days ago, may probably be evaluated in the context of these teachings above. Because we have less access to verifiable acts and classified documents are beyond our legal reach, we shall be guided by what is described as public knowledge.
The senator, then an officer of the armed forces of our Republic, led the Oakwood uprising. He and some of his fellow officers claimed that graft and corruption was institutionalized in the army. In making that disturbance, Trillanes and company succeeded to bring into open the misdeeds many people only whispered around.
He stuck to his assertions of government corruption when the more diabolical plot built around the “Hello, Garci” tapes surfaced. Even in the deathly silence of his prison cell, he, this time, had reason to attach illegal practices to the high office of Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The fertilizer scam, a technical malversation of sort, supposedly conceptualized by one the president’s men, named Joc-joc Bolante, added weight to the allegations of the incarcerated military officer.
Probably, it was Trillanes’ advocacy of clean government that prompted eleven million Filipinos to vote for him senator. (I did not, by the way, cast my ballot for him). Thus armed with a mandate of the people, he must have thought of assuming a higher ground of moral authority. The ZTE deal, the story where the first gentleman was publicized as having promoted and where millions of supposed bribe money was offered, together with the news of the handover, inside the premises of Malacañang, of hundreds of thousands of pesos to congressmen, P200,000.00 of which was acknowledged by our own Rep. Antonio Cuenco, (although he said later that it was just a joke I never laughed at) and governors, such as Pampanga’s Ed Panlilio, who unlike Congressman Cuenco has stood pat on his revelation), must have emboldened him to take action. In his thought, he perhaps imagined that the venalities committed were of such proportions and gravity that the people would rally around his leadership and, without saying so, mounted a kind of revolution. He could have been hero!
Dunn’s theories were put to a reality test and the end result was, unfortunately for Sen. Trillanes, also one of his conclusions. He became a goat.