Isang panawagan sa bayan

PAYAGAN n’yo po ako na gabayan kayo ng mga sariwang salita ng ating mahal na bayaning si Gat Andres Bonifacio. Aniya, "Kung ang bayan ay nilalapastangan at niyuyurakan xxx" "xxx aling kalooban ang di pupukawin sa paghihimagsik?" "Sa kanyang anyo’y sino ang hindi gugugol ng dugo at buhay?" "mangyari kaya ito’y malingap…at hindi lumingap sa naghihingalong Inang Bayan na nasa yapak ng kasuklam-suklam na Kastilang hamak?" (Excerpts from Bonifacio’s speech entitled "Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Bayan" page 98-99, The Revolt of the Masses, Teodoro Agoncillo, published by the University of the Philippines Press, Diliman, Quezon City, 1996 Edition).

Do you know that the United Sates’ Declaration of Independence recognizes the right of the people to overthrow an abusive government? Ito po ang unanimous declaration ng 13 Estados ng Amerika noong July 4, 1776 –

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government."

Kasing-liwanag pa sa sikat ng araw na itong kasalukuyang gobyerno natin ay sagad na sa pagka-destructive. My dear countrymen, it is now time to alter and to abolish it, and for us to institute a new government that will break the chains of our hardship and suffering.

Maliban sa mga dakilang salitang binigkas ng Gat Andres Bonifacio, sariwain din natin ang mga salita ng ilan sa mga forefathers ng Estados Unidos.

Ayon kay Samuel Johnson noong 1763, "If the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system."

More than twenty years later, Thomas Jefferson, in 1787, concurred when he said: "I hold it, that a little rebellion now and then, is a good thing and therefore, necessary in a political world as storms in the physical… It is a medicine for the sound health of government."

The following century, Henry Clay, in 1818, expressed the same sentiment, thus: "An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their chains."

And 30 years after Henry Clay said those words, Henry David Thoreau, in 1849, agreed, thus: "All men recognize the right of revolution; that is the right to refuse allegiance to, and resist the government, when its tyranny or inefficiency is great and unendurable."

Sixty one years later, Henry Campbell Black echoed the same sentiment, thus: "The right of revolution is the inherent right of a people to cast out their rulers, change their policy, or effect radical reforms in their system of government or institution, by force or general uprising, when the legal and constitutional methods of making such changes have proved inadequate, or are so obstructed as to be unavailable."

Si Wendell Philipps naman noong 1852 ang nagsabing: "A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past, its foundation are laid far back."

And finally, the pride of the Malayan Race himself, our very own national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal said on June 20, 1892, "Nais kong ipakita sa mga nagdaramot ng pagmamahal sa Bayan na alam natin kung paano ang mamatay para sa tungkulin at mga prinsipyo. Anong halaga ng kamatayan kung mamamatay para sa minamahal, para sa lupang tinubuan at mga minamahal na mga mamamayan." (Jose Rizal, Gregorio Zaide, page 259)

Not all of us can become president of this country. But we can all be patriots like Dr. Jose P. Rizal and Gat Andres Bonifacio, and that is even more exalted. Gary Hart was right when he said in 1987: "I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot."

In the face of the prevailing evil that continually strangle and suffocate all of us, what has been the government’s response? Ang tugon nila ay lalong umiigting at lumalawak na pandarambong o Massive Graft and Corruption o MGC o M & G & Company. Ito ang dahilan kung bakit ang bansang Pilipinas ay umaakyat sa ikalawang puwesto sa talaan ng mga "most corrupt countries in the world" at may mga nagsabi pa na inareglo lamang natin ang grupong may gawa ng survey na ito at kung hindi ay siguradong umakyat na tayo sa numero uno na pinaka-corrupt.

Hanggang sa susunod na Linggo po.

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