Sorry for what?

Video courtesy of GMANews.TV
Cory Aquino, that magnanimous housewife who led the Republic through the aftermath of the Iron-Rule, beloved by Filipinos, admired by the world, an icon in the modern era, teacher of a whole race, queen of democracy, a leader of change in two People Powers - one in EDSA I and the other in EDSA II - has just said something which held back many a lover of good governance especially those who are still masturbating in the excessive powers of the mob.

Asking forgiveness for participating in the ousting of a gambler is a logical fallacy of Ms. Aquino, for there is nothing to feel sorry about what we had decided of almost seven years ago. EDSA II was no mistake. If ever there was one it was the anti-reason enthronement of Mrs. Arroyo and not the popular conviction that the corruption of a casino administration ought to be brought down once and for all. At first I thought the better half of People Power hero Ninoy Aquino must have stated it the wrong way, yet she seemed to have meant it well, and no follow-up correction had been issued for clarifying the statement.

"I am one of those who plead guilty for the 2001 uprising. Lahat naman tayo nagkakamali. Patawarin mo na lang ako."

It is hard to believe that a supporter of moral governance will speak of condoning one who committed grave dishonesty during his tenure, dishonesty which is perhaps equally comparable to that of Mrs. Arroyo. They do not belong to either side of the weighing scale but rather they lie in the same platform, adding to the weight encumbering the average Filipino except the burgesses.

And will Cory's statement encourage Estrada to go for 2010? Earlier there were rumors that he would, and he may be looking for a favorable impetus before he calls it all systems go, for by attempting for another term the old man wants of course to redeem himself. Whether he will verify it or not we are yet to find a clear and reliable clue, but if he decisively affirms it and runs for president (and unfortunately, by slim margins inched by some Filipinos who cannot really perceive the difference of filming from real life, wins), for sure the mammon of power and wealth right in front of him cannot be resisted so easily by Erap who has been known to me as a man of many words but least actions. To trust him again will be another risk to be taken by a country which cannot afford a take one-take two mode of governance especially when it leads to nothing but pure bullshit.

All I can say about this is that Cory, in the twilight of her heroic life, has suddenly been out of her senses for once by implying that it was a mistake to free the country from the clasps of a crooked and immoral leader. Yet even though this is my impression of the incident, I will never lose my inimitable respect to her and thank her for being the conscience of the Filipino people all throughout our struggles in every upheaval of the decades.

An editor's great joy

I emerge fresh from a week-long training in Baguio City as the 46th National Rizal Youth Leadership Institute (NRYLI) rolled into a close December 17th. Tomorrow we have to conceptualize our school publication's upcoming issue for February which is a literary folio, and right now all I have to do is collect a seemingly-endless line of submissions from my e-mail inbox and sort them one by one, deciding in each turn which to accept and which to - I dare not say reject - make a headway suggestion for further revisions.

The thing I enjoy the most in being an editor is the opportunity to meet sorts of personalities not through physical encounters but through reading people's (or in my case, students') works. On the last few days I have encountered poems, essays, short stories and illustrations which I found worth publishing because of their varying ideas, principles and philosophies which make up a very colorful fabric of campus thought. There are no precise standards in judging poetry but the context in which the poet expresses it is the principal criterion because it is where the value of the poetic thought is inscribed. Whenever I decide upon one submission I do not concern myself mainly with the rhythm and the diction; a simple allegory that possesses no great carnival of words strikes me especially if it departs from the commonality of mediocre thinking. That is a great quality that I seek the most in poems.

For now I must dig and dig through this haystack until I find the golden needle. Why, I have found the silver ones. Ah, how beautiful is such diversity!

An assembly of partisan assassins is not fit for amending the constitution

House Speaker Prospero Nograles was right when he said that the Lower House has lost its adherence to "reason and logic". Along with the Senate it has turned into a house of daggers where unresolved arguments often conclude with threats of coups de chambré and political "assassinations" at the rostrum, something we find unimaginable in a body supposed to be consisting of "learned men" vested with the function of promoting common welfare and not partisan, if not self-interest.

We have seen what the House of Representatives did to JDV and the Senate to Manny Villar. Now Nograles is also threatened with a similar fate as he preferred amending the Constitution through a Constitutional Convention (Con-con) which was proposed by Sen. Mar Roxas II and not through a Constituent Assembly (Con-ass) whose proponents are Nograles's allies in the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (KAMPI), the political party of Mrs. Arroyo. Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte who heads KAMPI said that he was unconvinced of the speaker's approach to Charter Change, and Nograles had to fend off those subsequent ouster warnings from the bench, attacking them for the incivility of the debates which were often interrupted by name-calling at colleagues and nonconformists.

"We should confront this issue on Charter change on the basis of facts and logic. We should not just say that if you do this, I will go the streets, or if you don't do this, I will oust you. That's not the way we should be conducting our politics. We should use the power of reason and logic to make our point instead of throwing tantrums when you cannot get everyone to agree with your position," Nograles said in a statement.

If this session and the next go on without both Houses calling upon for rules on decorum and the resumption of a rational plenary the wisdom of resolutions cannot be understood or attained. With resolutions being drawn at the Con-ass vs. Con-con battlefield they should examine which of the two would best represent genuine popular will. I think that many of the congressmen who would compose the Con-ass have already lost the people's support because of incompetence or because of treading the ways of traditional politics, that is why a Con-con provides fresh ground for gathering competent intellectuals and socially conscious thinkers and political philosophers to whom Filipinos can entrust their authorship of the law.

The Congress must deliberate which mode would eliminate partisanship in amending the Constitution and benefit the indirect right of the people to partake in its creation. As a matter of fact, given the performance of most representatives and senators, many people are likely to possess a dwindling faith in these politicians as they (the people) have ceased to be docile and are now very scrutinizing towards the agenda of those in power; thus these politicians may no longer have the propriety of being called the representatives of the people. On the other hand, with doubt being the renewed virtue of our time, it shows that there are more and more professionals and lay leaders who have wider perspectives when it comes to the defects and deficiencies of the status quo, thus they have a more reliable capacity in molding a new set of rules. Also, unlike the composition of the Lower House which only has a small percentage of representatives from marginalized sectors, a Constitutional Convention is virtually a gathering of persons of every background from both well-represented and marginalized spheres. At this approximate par, amendments should be conducted, that is, it will conform to the characteristic of true democracy.

Remember that what the Congress has to come up if this Cha-cha ruckus is about to proceed is how a new charter will become acceptable to the people whose welfare, culture, character and attitude must be above all the bases of crafting and revising laws, and not how it would merely suit the aspirations of a regime.

Shinshin My Guardian Angel

I am not good in making video or image presentations, but I just want to share this with my few readers (due credits to The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus for the music).

I hope my few readers will allow this humble-opinioned political blogger to dwell for some time in his personal reflections especially in one of the most important aspects of his life: love and family.

Let there be no blood

There have been right now a few forces or associations who are as ardent as the suffering many to topple down the corrupt administration of Mrs. Arroyo. What were once rumors are now amplified to noises, and ominous as they are they send me thinking how a revolution would emanate from the present national feeling. In an earlier post I have declared my support to the ouster of the president, but that does not mean I am not indiscriminate as to the means by which such end will be executed.

I am aware of groups who are advocating two types of changes. One is up to the end aiming for change through peaceful means, while the other looks forward to bloodshed as a last resort (figuratively or not, depending upon whatever connotation they put to the word 'bloodshed'). I do not believe that there exists today revolutionaries who are going to wreak physical havoc right in the first assault, for everyone has seen what became of the flinched coup attempts of the previous years. You cannot push for armed revolution out of a people who have independent and separate views (I avoid using the term 'divided' because there is no such thing in our united aim to progress. We only differ in methods and beliefs whether one will be effective or not, but majority of us trusts the fact that change for the common good should come forth knowing that GMA is an enemy of such common good), and this was proven by the examples of the failures of theMagdalo group amid a period of skepticism towards change brought by coups.

What I mean is that we must become conscious that if ever we mobilize ourselves to action let that action avoid violence either as the first or as the last resort. A brigade which uses armed attempts to unseat the evil up there will only suffer both from the hands of that evil's military power and from the insufficiency of support coming from the people, the sovereign entities possessing the paramount will in such political action. The outcome of an unnecessary 'bloodbath' will not be revolution but rather civil war in an uncertain scale.

Contemplating of armed revolution without contemplating of its outcome is self-serving. Before embarking on such a course we must think for a hundred times how costly this is as well as how this is going to affect the future. The economic condition, public safety, national integrity, Filipino morale, political trust and even democracy are the aspects which receive the first blows during violent upheavals. We must never look like some careless crusaders or Deccan Mujahedeens who compromise much of these things. A softer push for change, a glorious revolution may create a few dents on these aspects but they surely are cushioned by the fact that there is least or no blood, fear, and conflict among Filipinos.