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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Another Revolution That Wasn�t? By Antonio C. Abaya February 21, 2002 Nothing exposes the fatuousness of the Philippine bourgeoisie�s claim more graphically, that they had staged a revolution in February 1986, than the singular fact that, despite more than a hundred court cases against them in the past sixteen years, not a single Marcos family member, relative or crony has gone to jail for his or her crime. Would the French Revolution of 1789-99 have been properly called a revolution if all the punishment that the Bourbon king and queen suffered for their decades of gross excesses was some discomfort during the hasty flight to Varennes? And yet that was all that the Marcoses suffered, wasn�t it, some discomfort during the hasty helicopter flight to Paoay, Unlike the Bourbons, the Marcoses have kept their heads on their shoulders and their fabulous wealth in their banks, and they are none the worse for it. On the contrary, not only did they all manage to sneak back into the country without being arrested and jailed, they were all allowed to run for public offices and win! Only in the Philippines! Again, would the French Revolution have been properly called a revolution if, five years after they were forced to flee Paris, the Bourbons were allowed back into France unmolested and permitted to join an active and open monarchist opposition to the new republican order? Sacre bleu! How we Filipinos have bastardized the word �revolution�! ***** And emasculated the concept of punishment to fit the crime. In that first challenge to the �revolutionary government� of Cory Aquino, the military mutiny staged by Marcos loyalist soldiers who seized the Manila Hotel in July 1986, the ringleaders should have been court-martialed and executed by firing squad, as similar challenges to the authority of the state would have been dealt with in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia or China. Instead, they were made to do 30 ridiculous push-ups, by no less than the AFP Chief-of-Staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos. That kind of slap-on-the-wrist is appropriate if the mutineers had been caught doing nothing more earth-shaking than, say, masturbating on the hotel banquet table. But seizing government property and challenging the authority of the state by staging a military mutiny deserved a far more serious punishment which our leaders, even under a �revolutionary government�, seem incapable of meting out. And this was not a solitary example of the wimpiness of the �revolutionary� Aquino Government. In November 1989, not coincidentally less than two weeks before Gringo Honasan�s second (failed) coup attempt, Marcos Crony Numero Uno Danding Cojuangco, who had hastily flown out of Malacanang in the same helicopter as the Marcoses in February 1986, suddenly and without any notice showed up in Manila, sending the government into a tizzy. He had apparently flown in from Sabah in a small plane and landed undetected on an airstrip somewhere in Mindanao, most probably in his hacienda in Davao, without going through immigration formalities. The Aquino Government was so stunned and terrified by Danding�s sudden appearance that it could not gather enough nerve to book him for illegal entry, which he was so obviously guilty of. And then there was this long and minutely detailed story written by San Francisco Examiner writer (and now editor-in-chief) Phil Bronstein, reprinted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in its entirety on November 20, 1990, claiming that Danding had commissioned a gunsmithy in Flagstaff, Arizona, which makes special weapons for the CIA, to fabricate two James-Bond-type firearms (one, an attach� case with a built-in gun, the other a TV camera with a built-in gun) to be used for the planned assassination of Cory Aquino in December 1989. Danding�s lawyer simply issued a curt, blanket denial. None of the wimps in the government, the military, Congress, the Church, the NGOs or even the communist movement had the balls to call for an investigation. But that�s another story�. This pronounced reluctance to assert the authority of the state, even in the most serious matters, convinces me that if there was indeed a revolution in February 1986, as some ideologically na�ve burgis insist, it was a revolution of wimps, by wimps and for wimps, and it does not deserve to be commemorated by the ideologically aware who can tell the difference between revolution and masturbation. ***** So now we come to the �revolution� of January 2001 which led to the overthrow of the criminally inclined ignoramus Joseph Estrada. There is now an orchestrated effort among both administration and opposition trapos, in the Senate and the Lower House and most likely in the Cabinet itself, to allow Estrada to leave the country to have American doctors operate on his knee. The move is said to be motivated by compassion. But if it is indeed compassion that motivates these trapos to shed crocodile tears, why limit the beneficiary to Estrada alone? In a population of 78 million, there must be at least two hundred other people who also need surgery on their knees. Compassion combined with common sense tells me it is cheaper to import the modern equipment, said to be unavailable in this country, so that Filipino doctors, who are just as skillful as their American counterparts, can operate on the knees of Estrada as well as of two hundred other Filipinos, than to send Estrada, alone, to the US where medical and surgical costs are astronomical compared to similar costs here. If Estrada, who claims to have the interests of the masa in his heart (and groin), really believes his own propaganda, he should not hesitate in endorsing this alternative knee-surgery proposal as it will benefit not only himself but at least two hundred other Filipinos, for whom he often claims a compassionate embrace. No greater love than his, that he makes possible knee surgery for two hundred other suffering victims. ***** But, of course, the knee-surgery-abroad is just a ploy and a gimmick to get him out of the country so that he can escape prosecution and a jail sentence. Exile abroad would always be more desirable than incarceration in Muntinlupa, where he would not be able to enjoy the company of his mistresses, the Bacchanalian pleasures from his Petrus wines, and the convivial camaraderie of his million-peso-a-throw mahjong kaffeeklatsch. From the point of view of the Arroyo Government, sending Erap abroad, on any pretext, is preferable to keeping him here where his rabble rousers can and will use him to incite the squealing masa into open rebellion against Ate Glo who, despite her and her Cabinet�s best efforts, seems to have failed to come up with the right approach and the effective tactic for convincing the broad mass of Filipinos that she is the best thing that has happened to them since hot pan de sal. Even the Americans, whose permission would have to be solicited if Erap is to be allowed to go into exile in their country, would most likely go along with it, not because they have any affection for Erap (they don�t), but because, with Erap safely tucked away in San Francisco, at least one avenue would be closed for the Chinese to gain control of the Philippines by corrupting its leaders with drug money, as they had apparently started to do before EDSA Dos. But what about the Philippine bourgeoisie, the angry and frustrated middle class, the shock troops of EDSA Uno and EDSA Dos, who were betrayed by the wimps of 1986? Would they quietly acquiesce to being betrayed again, this time by the wimps of 2002? If so, then EDSA Dos will have become another revolution that wasn�t. ***** This article appeared in the March 11, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |