Gov’t repeating what caused two People Power revolts
Corruption and injustice sparked two People Power revolts.
Ninoy Aquino’s assassination and Marcos kleptocracy incited the first in February 1986. Soldiers and priests rallied millions to protest at EDSA and elsewhere till the Marcoses stepped down.
Senators’ suppression of bribery evidence against impeached president Estrada triggered EDSA Dos in January 2001. Civil society and professionals led the outcry. Erap fell when the AFP withdrew support.
Plunder and abuse worsened in the past and present admins.
A general was murdered in July 2020 for cleaning up the charity sweepstakes. A police colonel who denies being a presidential mistress masterminded it, two hitmen confessed Friday.
Amid 7,000 drug killings, POGOs thrived under Chinese presidential adviser Michael Yang and narco trafficker Allan Lim. Malacañang appointees bought from them P7.5-billion fake, substandard pandemic supplies.
Upon ascending, the present admin’s vanity Maharlika Fund took P25 billion from DBP and P50 billion each from Landbank and BSP. It granted sugar import exclusivity to what Sen. Risa Hontiveros called a “government-sponsored cartel.”
Military men now grumble against Malacañang’s diversion of their and 119 million Filipinos’ P90 billion from PhilHealth. Congress covets the money for pork barrels.
Politicos have been extracting 40-percent kickbacks under two presidencies, Baguio mayor Benjie Magalong exposes. Insatiable, they act as contractors and suppliers to pocket 30 percent more. Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto and Jagna, Bohol mayor Joseph Rañola confirm the sleaze.
Yet the ombudsman hasn’t checked politicos’ lifestyles. It even hides culprits’ asset statements.
Politicos’ favorite rackets are flood works, asphalt overlays, rock nettings and cat’s eyes. Easiest to overprice sixfold. But Congress shuns probes of its members.
Political dynasts control Malacañang, Congress and locales. Making up 85 percent of electees, they refuse to ban dynasties as the Constitution requires.
Rarely do dynasties fight to the death, like the Marcoses versus Dutertes. They divide among themselves which cities and districts to rule.
Election fraud fatten dynasts. Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte topped Election 2022 via illegal private IP Address 192.168.0.2. Thirty-seven percent of votes incredibly poured in within the first hour of the 11-day count. Public mind conditioning.
Retired Gen. Eliseo Rio and Col. Leonardo Odoño twice petitioned the Supreme Court against cheating. First, in November 2022, for SC to compel Comelec to release precinct transmission logs. Second, in February 2024, to order Comelec to fulfill its promise to recount selected ballots. No SC action.
A third petition begs SC to make Congress define political dynasties. No action.
Three PhilHealth-related petitions remain hanging:
• By minority Reps. Edcel Lagman, Mujiv Hataman and Gabriel Bordado to outlaw the P450-billion pork in the 2024 national budget;
• By ex-Reps. Neri Colmenares, Teddy Casiño, Carlos Zarate and Ferdinand Gaite to nullify BBM’s certification of urgency to enact the 2024 budget. With no SC action, BBM repeated it last week with the 2025 appropriations;
• By Senate minority leader Koko Pimentel, health care reformist Dr. Minguita Padilla, UP economics Prof. Cielo Magno and the 93,000-strong Philippine Medical Association to stop the P90-billion diversion.
SC in August ignored the urgent plea to restrain the P90-billion transfer. It set oral arguments five months hence, Jan. 14, 2025. By then government would’ve completed the diversion in four tranches, Rep. Rufus Rodriguez remarked: “The hearing will have lost its usefulness.”
Retired generals, some of whom led the 1986 Revolt, are restive. Active-duty officers are seeking their advice on the “social volcano about to erupt” like before.
Servicemen are barred from partisanship. But they suffer like civilians from the corrupt system they’re sworn to defend.
Three hundred retirees have banded together under Alyansa ng Nagkaka-Isang Mamamayan. They swear to fight graft, dynasties and election cheating.
Among them are former defense secretary and AFP chief Renato de Villa, 93; Adm. Guererro Guzman, 81; PC-INP Col. Mariano Santiago, 80; Air Force Col. Hector Tarrazona, 79 and former PMA superintendent Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, 75.
Thousands more have signed up from the National ROTC Alumni Association, Kampilan Peacekeepers and concerned UP Vanguards.
As in 1986 they link up with clerics, Catholic Bishops Colin Bagaforo of Caritas Philippines and Gerry Alminaza of San Carlos Diocese, terrorized last year by a warlord’s massacre of Gov. Noel Degamo and nine constituents.
Also Fr. Noel Gatchalian, SVD and GOMBURZA founders Frs. Robert Reyes, Roger del Rosario and Joel Saballa. With leaders of the Presbyterian Church, Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals and Catholic Students Group in 140 schools.
Over 60 civil society and professional groups have joined. Prominent personalities are former COA commissioner Heidi Mendoza, election reformists Attys. Alex Lacson and Melchor Magdamo, ex-Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman and ex-FINEX presidents Franklin Isaac and Edwin Fernandez.
ANIM will lead a People’s Initiative to enact an anti-dynasty law, says co-founder Capt. Robert Yap. Lacson, Magdamo, Lagman and Isaac urge Comelec to adopt a transparent hybrid election system: manual precinct balloting and counting, with electronic transmission and canvassing.
It’s an uphill fight. Magalong, Sotto and Rañola’s Mayors for Good Governance comprises only nine percent of 149 city and 1,493 municipal chiefs. Only a dozen of 130 Catholic bishops denounce the poverty and inequity that bad government causes.
And, as Tarrazona reminds, 20 senators and a hundred congressmen implicated in Janet Lim Napoles’ pork barrel scam remain unindicted.
Still, as the Greek proverb goes, a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM). Follow me on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/Jarius-Bondoc
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