The team’s composition is fantastic, almost unbelievable. The full pendulum swing of political mindset in Philippine political spectrum is covered. The team leader brags about it. From the Bong Bong Marcos Right or Martial Law leanings to the Satur Ocampo/Liza Maza Left suasions, they answer to the call of the team leader. The in-betweens are equally represented. Name it: the Center, the Right of Center or the Left of Center. They are behind each other for support. They stand, as the latest Nationalist Party (NP) advertisement claims, as the true opposition.
The NP ticket for the May 2010 national election is like the dream team, or so some claim. With the stern conviction liken to sports athletes, they all get together, apparently, to horde the “Olympic” gold. The NP Orange team, some say, will finally cut, like the Gordian knot, the long-standing curse of not winning a single gold for the country. As in the Olympics so goes with Philippine politics. In the race for excellence, the Philippines never hit the gold mine. With the NP team, the promise is there to break it.
If this is Star Wars, you will not have the second thought to dismiss, that the Force, indeed is colored orange. This Force will finally end the evil lord’s treachery, debauchery, lies, corruption and oppression. Hunger will finally meet its end. Children will go to school. There will be plenty of food on the table. When you go to a hospital for cure, there’s a big fighting chance that you will not lose a brother as there will be people to assist you, and not to ask you if you brought the right amount of money for you or your brother’s ills. Drought will finally be over as there will be contingency plans long before it arrives. You will have second thoughts to leave Mother Land for employment, as there are equally compelling and satisfying works to do here. This, more or less, is the promised scenario capsuled in the NP advertisements.
However, as your great grand mother will attest, Philippine politics is full of promises. And that’s just about it—promises. Like an air balloon, all you need is a needle to release the hot air. And that’s just about it—air.
There is no doubt about it. The May 2010 election is absolutely about ending corruption. Corruption robs us all of any sense of dignity and future. Corruption snatches our food on the table. Corruption always leaves us with empty medicine bottles for our loved ones. Corruption forces our population to find jobs in distant lands, leaving our children without mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.
Anyone caught carrying a cookie of corruption, therefore, has no business harking against it. Because, as all mothers know, the boy caught stealing a cookie and continues to deny it, is a liar, is a thief. The boy needs to be punished to learn his lesson. Otherwise, you are harboring a crook in the house, who, like all mothers know, will eventually rob you and your neighbors.
If you dare announce, as in many NP political advertisements, that you are the true opposition, because you know that the central issue of the May 2010 election is corruption and that your are moving heaven and earth if need be to go against corruption, oppression and abuses of power, you better not be caught biting a cookie of corruption. Answering opo (yes) in paid advertisements to go against corruption and be seen doing otherwise, is simply that—advertisement.
Up to this point, Manny Villar, the NP team leader has not convincingly presented or explained beyond any iota of doubt the anomalous C-5 extension road insertion. All we get are his evasions, dramatics, posturing, and yes claims of being the true opposition.
Using the Senate Reports and sheer logic and evidence, UP Professor Winnie Monsod has convincingly explained how the C-5 extension project was twisted to favor Manny Villar, making the NP Presidential candidate, amass money beyond our wildest dreams. If you are not in the habit of reading Senate Reports, all you have to do is to get a map. Check out how many of the Villar property (Golden Haven, Britanny, Camella, Adelfa, etc.) benefitted from the C-5 extension road project. DPWH itself claims that from the beginning the project was envisioned by Villar himself.
In a multi-party system like the Philippines, the need to identify the true opposition is indeed a necessity. The true opposition must be at all fronts against corruption, not as a matter of advertisements, but as a matter of policy and practice. The true opposition must show beyond all measures that they were, are and will be against corruption. The true opposition joins forces together against corruption not as a matter of personal interest or convenience or simply for winning votes but because they truly believe so, and act on the basis of that conviction.
The May 2010 election is not a search to who will be the most skillful economists, politicians, law makers, actors or academicians to properly govern this nation. The May 2010 election is about corruption and going against it at all cost.
Yes, Oholliab, we are back in 1986, the time when we dared clear the line between good and evil, between right and wrong. Perhaps, this is the lesson that this nation has not fully learned or understood. Perhaps, this is the reason why we keep coming back to where we began. We have to continue defining good and evil to truly make this nation great.
For a start, in the May 2010 election, the true opposition is everything that the Arroyo administration is not.
The NP ticket for the May 2010 national election is like the dream team, or so some claim. With the stern conviction liken to sports athletes, they all get together, apparently, to horde the “Olympic” gold. The NP Orange team, some say, will finally cut, like the Gordian knot, the long-standing curse of not winning a single gold for the country. As in the Olympics so goes with Philippine politics. In the race for excellence, the Philippines never hit the gold mine. With the NP team, the promise is there to break it.
If this is Star Wars, you will not have the second thought to dismiss, that the Force, indeed is colored orange. This Force will finally end the evil lord’s treachery, debauchery, lies, corruption and oppression. Hunger will finally meet its end. Children will go to school. There will be plenty of food on the table. When you go to a hospital for cure, there’s a big fighting chance that you will not lose a brother as there will be people to assist you, and not to ask you if you brought the right amount of money for you or your brother’s ills. Drought will finally be over as there will be contingency plans long before it arrives. You will have second thoughts to leave Mother Land for employment, as there are equally compelling and satisfying works to do here. This, more or less, is the promised scenario capsuled in the NP advertisements.
However, as your great grand mother will attest, Philippine politics is full of promises. And that’s just about it—promises. Like an air balloon, all you need is a needle to release the hot air. And that’s just about it—air.
There is no doubt about it. The May 2010 election is absolutely about ending corruption. Corruption robs us all of any sense of dignity and future. Corruption snatches our food on the table. Corruption always leaves us with empty medicine bottles for our loved ones. Corruption forces our population to find jobs in distant lands, leaving our children without mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.
Anyone caught carrying a cookie of corruption, therefore, has no business harking against it. Because, as all mothers know, the boy caught stealing a cookie and continues to deny it, is a liar, is a thief. The boy needs to be punished to learn his lesson. Otherwise, you are harboring a crook in the house, who, like all mothers know, will eventually rob you and your neighbors.
If you dare announce, as in many NP political advertisements, that you are the true opposition, because you know that the central issue of the May 2010 election is corruption and that your are moving heaven and earth if need be to go against corruption, oppression and abuses of power, you better not be caught biting a cookie of corruption. Answering opo (yes) in paid advertisements to go against corruption and be seen doing otherwise, is simply that—advertisement.
Up to this point, Manny Villar, the NP team leader has not convincingly presented or explained beyond any iota of doubt the anomalous C-5 extension road insertion. All we get are his evasions, dramatics, posturing, and yes claims of being the true opposition.
Using the Senate Reports and sheer logic and evidence, UP Professor Winnie Monsod has convincingly explained how the C-5 extension project was twisted to favor Manny Villar, making the NP Presidential candidate, amass money beyond our wildest dreams. If you are not in the habit of reading Senate Reports, all you have to do is to get a map. Check out how many of the Villar property (Golden Haven, Britanny, Camella, Adelfa, etc.) benefitted from the C-5 extension road project. DPWH itself claims that from the beginning the project was envisioned by Villar himself.
In a multi-party system like the Philippines, the need to identify the true opposition is indeed a necessity. The true opposition must be at all fronts against corruption, not as a matter of advertisements, but as a matter of policy and practice. The true opposition must show beyond all measures that they were, are and will be against corruption. The true opposition joins forces together against corruption not as a matter of personal interest or convenience or simply for winning votes but because they truly believe so, and act on the basis of that conviction.
The May 2010 election is not a search to who will be the most skillful economists, politicians, law makers, actors or academicians to properly govern this nation. The May 2010 election is about corruption and going against it at all cost.
Yes, Oholliab, we are back in 1986, the time when we dared clear the line between good and evil, between right and wrong. Perhaps, this is the lesson that this nation has not fully learned or understood. Perhaps, this is the reason why we keep coming back to where we began. We have to continue defining good and evil to truly make this nation great.
For a start, in the May 2010 election, the true opposition is everything that the Arroyo administration is not.
