Soldiers have a stake in this nation

Due to the huge controversy happening in this country today where there’s infighting amongst the political elite (they have ruled this nation for 28 years since the 1986 EDSA Revolt) because of the pork scam as exposed by Janet Lim Napoles and Ben-Hur Luy. The rumors of an impending coup is openly discussed in coffee houses all over the country. During her time the late President Cory Aquino experienced many coups against her government, yet the political situation today under her son, President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III is far worse than during his mother’s term as President.

Sensing perhaps that there are disgruntled elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) or the Philippine National Police (PNP), Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin warned the military to avoid getting swept by political issues. Even Sec. Gazmin himself admits that the situation today is highly confusing for our country, especially regarding the pork barrel scam. Hence he warned the officers and men of the Defense Department and the AFP to stop getting affected when it comes to the country’s political issues.

Come now Sec. Gazmin…how can you tell the military not to get affected by this political circus or zarzuela happening in the Senate by Senators and Congressmen? These lawmakers allegedly stole millions of the people’s money with the help of Janet Lim Napoles and Ben-Hur Luy who used fake NGOs to get the people’s hard earned tax money so they could put it in their private bank accounts here… or worse in offshore banks?

Are you telling our soldiers Sec. Gazmin not to read our national or local newspapers, or if the pork scam issue is on nationwide TV for those soldiers to switch off their television sets, or just watch a telenovela like “The Legal Wife?” If at all, Sec. Gazmin ought to show some respect for our soldiers and not treat them like robots because they are not robots. Surely Sec. Gazmin knows that the majority of our soldiers also live below the poverty line and when the political elite steal that money… it gets the soldiers and their families stay in that vicious cycle of poverty like most Filipinos.

Lest he has already forgotten, if the Filipino soldier at the height of the EDSA Revolt stayed with the Marcos Dictatorship, Sec. Gazmin would never have made it as Defense Secretary! Whether you like it or not, first and foremost, the Filipino soldier is a citizen of this country and therefore each and everyone of them has a stake in this nation.

Now if it can be proven (that’s the easy part) that the political elite stole public funds right before the eyes of the Filipino people, we expect the security services of this country to arrest those criminals whom we have mistakenly addressed as “Honorable,” which many of them are not. So how come these suspected criminals are not yet behind bars? Is it because there is a double standard of justice that the Aquino regime espouses?

Last Dec. 14, the so-called “Martilyo Gang” struck at the SM North EDSA in Quezon City, escaping with a reported P5 million loot in jewelries. That robbery brought the dynamic duo President Aquino and his DILG Sec. Mar Roxas scampering to SM North EDSA as if what those robbers did was a huge national security risk! Yet when Senators and Congressmen, including the President’s own buddy-buddy DBM Sec. Florencio “Butch” Abad has been tagged by Janet Lim Napoles as the pork scam king, the President keeps on defending his bata-bata.

Janet Lim Napoles surrendered to the President in Malacañang on Aug. 28, 2013 and up to now no arrests have been made against the pork scammers. So back to you Mr. Gazmin… do you think that the soldier or the policeman is happy with this situation where the largest organized crime syndicate that has been exposed for the first time in our 28 years since the EDSA Revolt is really lurking inside the Legislature?

No sir, let the policeman or soldier grieve like everyone else that we’ve all been had by the political elite who are trying to defend themselves to the hilt so they don’t have to land in jail. Now is this fair? Do we really have a double standard of Justice, or have we become a nation of men and not of laws? Let me say it here again that a major branch of the Philippine government, the Legislature has been soiled beyond repair because we can no longer trust these people to enact laws, especially approve funding which could once more fall into the wrong hands.

This is why today we need a National Transformation Council (NTC) to act as a caretaker government so we could fix whatever is wrong in our system of governance and if possible install a new and better system of government that would truly serve the Filipino people. For too long, political dynasties existed because despite the low pay for Senators and Congressmen, the political elite have a clever way of siphoning public funds into their pockets. Finally they have been caught red-handed. So who will arrest them?

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