Is the Filipino still worth dying for?

If you examined carefully the colored front page photograph of the Philippine STAR last Sunday, you will notice the damage front of the M/V Sulcon Express 7 with the tall buildings of Cebu City at the background and you will see how close this sea tragedy was to downtown Cebu City, maybe less than 2 kilometers away. From this photo alone you will see that the M/V Sulcon Express 7 was headed away from the city, while the M/V St. Thomas Aquinas was coming in to Cebu Port from Butuan City.

If you were the Captain of the M/V Sulcon Express 7 you only had a totally dark view of the sea as the city lights were behind the vessel, while the officers of the M/V St. Thomas Aquinas could see the dazzling city lights of Cebu City and they have to discern if there was an on coming vessel approaching their starboard side. Now the M/V St. Thomas Aquinas was painted white therefore it would have been clearly visible to the ship’s officers on the bridge at the M/V Sulcon Express 7. But nonetheless the M/V St. Thomas Aquinas was rammed by the M/V Sulcon Express 7 on its starboard side and now 32 people are dead and at least 150 are still missing.

No doubt the officers on the bridge of the M/V Sulcon Express 7 were not looking right in front of their eyes… until it was too late. This is why the impact of this ship collision was so strong the bow of the M/V Sulcon Express 7 literally plowed into the middle of the M/V St. Thomas Aquinas, which is why the survivors who spoke before news reporters all seem to come up with one story… that their ship sank in less than 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, it is hoped that the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) would call for a Marine Inquiry to this obvious man-made disaster because it happened when we no longer had bad or stormy weather and there were no rains at that time.

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Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. which is considered as one of the country’s famous unsolved crimes…despite its a most high-profile status. Just think… if you’re already 30 years old today, I’m sure you would not have any memories of what transpired in this country 30 long years ago.

I usually do my annual tribute to Ninoy Aquino… whom I once met in Cebu just before Martial Law was declared. This is why we were so vehemently against the conjugal Marcos dictatorship for having the gall to have Ninoy Aquino assassinated right before hundreds of witnesses, including the international press. Yet when Ninoy was buried accompanied by hundreds of thousands of mourners, it however did not trigger the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship, even if the late Pres. Marcos was already on his sickbed.

But since it’s 30 years since Ninoy’s death, I won’t be doing any tributes to him anymore… and instead, Filipinos of today ought to go into deep soul searching on what the death of Ninoy means for us Filipinos, especially that 30 years have passed after Ninoy’s death and we’ve had two Aquinos as President of this country. First through his wife President Cory Aquino and now his son, President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III. So the question is, have we Filipinos improved our lot under the Presidency of the Aquinos?

It was only on February 22, 1986 when the Filipino people acted, totally fed up with the political system that the Marcos dictatorship put in place in the 1973 Constitution. In those days cheating in the national elections have become institutionalized in a government agency called the Commission on Elections (Comelec), a supposedly constitutionally independent government body.

I would like to emphasize to our faithful readers that Ninoy’s public execution did not trigger the Filipino people to march to EDSA to bring down the Marcos dictatorship. The EDSA People Power Revolt was triggered by the massive walkout by computer programmers working at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

Out of Ninoy’s death came his slogan, “The Filipino people is worth dying for!” So let’s ask this question again… are we Filipinos still worth dying for? Please tell us. We’ve just finished the May 2013 national and local elections using the PCOS machines for the second time… and IT Professor Alex Muga discovered the infamous 60%-30%-10% given to the Liberal Party, UNA and those who also ran. In short, Tanggulang Demokrasya (TanDem) uncovered a massive cheating scheme perpetrated by the Comelec and the Filipino people are not out in the streets in righteous indignation?

I gathered that there would be a “Million Man” march this coming Aug. 26 against the abuses of the pork barrel by our legislators using fake NGOs. I suggest we should do this, not just for the pork barrel scam, but also for the electronic Dagdag Bawas and the brazen attempt by the Aquino regime to bring the US military back in Subic and Clark Airbase.

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