Hence, in place of studied consideration, we are left with dizzied randomness of thought. Quickies, okay, briefs, become the common commentaries on the issues of the day. ThinkTwitter, think Facebook here.
“Kung patuloy ninyong ilalagay sa peligro ang sambayanan, hindi kami mag-aatubiling sagasaan kayo [If you continue to put the country in the line of danger, we will not hesitateto run you over].”
So warned President BS Aquino III of his critics in his speech at Sunday’s graduationrites at the Philippine Military Academy.
Intolerant of critics – the BS is doing a Marcos there. Which not so long ago, Senator Joker Arroyo – yeah, he who tagged the BS’s Cabinet as “student council” – slammed the BS with as “intolerant of any kind of dissent, any kind of disagreement with what the governmentdoes.”
And further idiotized the BS thus: “He doesn’t understand what government is. He thinks that good intentions justify doing anything. He doesn’t understand the workings of the Constitution.” So prescient of the Joker, current events provehim now.
Of Marcosian tendencies too, embattled Makati Mayor Junjun Binay damned his father’s presumptive but unheralded rival for the 2016 presidential derby for his woes arising from theOmbudsman’s order of his suspension.
“MARtial Law!” cried Junior Binay referencing the serving of his suspension by Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, and unyielding in his order notwithstanding the relief given the mayor by the temporary restrainingorder granted him by the Court of Appeals.
Martial was indeed the atmosphere at the Makati City Hall grounds with the phalanx of armed uniformed policemen, SAF troopers included, that swarmed the area.
But an adjunct of the Marcosian dictatorship – the New Society – also obtained in the Makati City Hall grounds. The hakot system – their supporters hauled to form some human wall to “protect” the besieged bastion of Binaydom. Complete with food and entertainment – so reminiscent of the Imeldific days.
Throwback to the very period that Martial Law sought to obliterate is the very situation in Makati now.
For all its being the country’s poster city for wealth and economic development, Makati makes a shattered showcase of the democratic system in government, reduced as it has been to nothing more than a Binay fiefdom.
How else explain the open defiance of a lawful order by Junior Binay, the current lord of the manor?
Indeed, how explain the stranglehold – for decades now – of Makati by the Binays: successively the Senior, the wife, now the Junior of the mayorship; the daughter of the congressional district, the other daughter encroaching in the Senate, the father now a breath away from the presidency of the Republic. A dynasty well entrenched there.
Patronage politics expressed now in birthday cakes, free movies for senior citizens, scholarship grants, free medical services, etc. so impacted in the Makati constituency that any perceived threat to their lords becomes a clear and present danger to them. Thus the instant materialization of the hordes of poor folk at the Makati City Hall grounds even before the Ombudsman actually came out with its suspension order.
Feudalism at its glaring worst there. But who cares?
For all the issues of corruption thrown at the Binays – from the billion-peso car park to the Batangas hacienda, from the farmlands in various provinces to the penthouses and condominiums, to the Boy Scout of the Philippines’ allegedly anomalous deals – the Veep still lords it over all pretenders to the presidency in 2016 – even increasing to 29 percent in the March survey from 26 percent in last November’s. Favorite whipping boy Roxas mired at 4 percent.
So it’s Ganito kami sa Makati, Ganito na rin ang Pilipinas in but a short matter of time from now?
God forbid!
For now, we may as well take solace in the words of the erudite Chief Justice Reynato Puno during one celebration of Ethics Day at the Philippine National Police: “…the great truths – whether religious truths, moral truths or political truths – are not determined by popularity vote, because oftentimes the majority rests only on what is momentarily delightful or what is pleasantly pleasurable.”
And it really baffles what people see as delightful or pleasantly pleasurable in these Binays.
Nognog!
