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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| A TIMEly Story
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Feb. 28, 2006 For the Standard Today, March 02 issue As if the current political situation were not convoluted enough, comes now a story in the March 06 issue of TIME magazine, Asia edition, written by Bryan Walsh from reports filed by longtime TIME correspondent in Manila, Nelly Sindayen, a Filipina. Let me quote substantial portions from it: ��On Thursday night (Feb. 23), a TIME reporter was invited to witness a meeting held at the home of Jose Cojuangco, brother of former president Corazon Aquino, where a possible plan for a �withdrawal of support� from President Arroyo was being discussed�..Pastor Saycon, a businessman and longtime Arroyo critic, discussed a new government. �As the others listened, Saycon spoke over the phone to a person he identified as an American official in Washington, assuring him that the post-coup regime would remain on good terms with the US. �You will still be our friend,� he said.� (Significantly, that last sentence came out in the Manila press as �You will still be our friend, not China.� The inclusion of �not China� suggests that the US official in Washington that Saycon was talking to belonged to the neo-conservative cabal led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, who are upset over GMA�s signing of an agreement with Beijing for the joint exploration for oil in the Spratlys and who are alleged to be plotting her overthrow. See my article �Uncle Dick and Ate Glo� Jan. 03, 2006). Back to TIME: �Then, around 9pm, Saycon phoned a man whom he addressed as �Delta� and identified as Gen. (Danilo) Lim (head of the Scout Rangers). According to Saycon, a military contingent was to march on Friday morning (Feb. 24) to Manila�s EDSA shrine commemorating the first People Power revolution, where the 20th anniversary celebrations were to take place. �At the shrine, they would be met by a contingent of Catholic bishops, and a Marine general would read a statement withdrawing support from Arroyo�s government. The bishops, according to Saycon, had one request: that the action be bloodless�.� (So now we know, if TIME is to be believed, that despite the pious pronouncements of the CBCP abhorring extra-constitutional means to effect political change, �a contingent of Catholic bishops� were in fact willing accomplices in the aborted overthrow attempt.) As to be expected, both Cojuangco and Saycon have issued public denials that they were in any way involved in any plot to overthrow the Arroyo government. So the public will have to decide for themselves whom to believe: Cojuangco and Saycon on one side, or Sindayen, Walsh and TIME magazine on the other. I tend to believe the latter. Cojuangco and Saycon will boast to anyone who will listen that they were responsible for the overthrow of Joseph Estrada in January 2001, through their NGO, Council of Philippine Affairs or COPA. They had expected to be rewarded with Cabinet positions in the Arroyo government � Cojuangco was said to be angling for the Department of Agriculture � and when they did not get the desired posts, they started making noises against Arroyo. (The tendency to brag about authorship of a successful overthrow, and to deny involvement in an unsuccessful one, is so very Filipino. The presence of a TIME reporter in the Cojuangco house during those delicate hours suggests supreme confidence that the overthrow attempt would succeed, and TIME was let in on it to record for posterity their heroic roles in it. That is my interpretation of this flap.) COPA even teamed up in, I think, 2002 with the late Popoy Lagman, head of the Rejectionist faction of the communist movement, that had broken away in 1992 from the Reaffirmist mainstream loyal to Joma Sison. The two communist factions have been quarreling since over how best to wage the socialist revolution, but both factions remain steadfastly communist in their goals: the violent overthrow of the bourgeois state and the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat. The two communist factions hated each other, apparently more than they hated capitalists like Cojuangco and Saycon, and eventually Lagman and another leading Rejectionist, Rolly Kintanar, were assassinated. The speculation is that the assassinations were ordered by Josef. Ma. Stalin, recalling the fate of Stalin�s rival in the Soviet Politburo, Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated, with an axe blow to the head, in Mexico in the 1940s. Lagman�s main political organization was Sanlakas, the Rejectionist equivalent of the Reaffirmists� National Democratic Front. Sanlakas� battle cry was the syntactically tortured �Resign, All!� Meaning, everyone in the government, including President Arroyo, should resign, a sentiment that COPA endorsed as early as 2002 and apparently all the way to 2006. The TIMEly story raises some questions about the efforts to overthrow President Arroyo, to which I have no answers at present: Are we seeing two parallel and independent efforts to overthrow President Arroyo? One led by Erap-Morales-the Reaffirmist (Joma) faction of the communist movement, and supported by some of the Magdalo warriors? The other led by Cojuangco-Saycon-the Rejectionist (Popoy) faction of the communist movement, and supported by some Rangers, Marines and PNP units, as well as by some Catholic bishops, the neo-cons in Washington DC and some middle-class organizations and individuals? Or are they twin prongs of a united effort to unseat President Arroyo? Offhand, I have no answer. But whether the former or the latter, there is no reason to rejoice that groups who hate and distrust each other are temporarily united in each faction and, possibly, in a joint effort by both factions. Sooner rather than later, their mutual animosities and basically incompatible agendas will re-surface and we will be back to the endless quarrels during the Cory years The two communist factions hate each other to the point of killing each other. Both communist factions hate the �exploiting� middle class as well as the neo-cons in Washington. The middle class dislike and distrust the communists as well as the trapos in both camps, as much as they dislike Gloria Arroyo. And the military, being serenaded by all groups, are confused and divided as to where their loyalty should really lie. And one last point, does anyone really believe that Joseph Estrada or Peping Cojuangco or Pastor Saycon or Joma Sison or Boy Morales or Gringo Honasan or Danny Lim or the ghost of Popoy Lagman (and let�s throw in Gloria Arroyo for good measure) represent(s)(ed) the best that Filipinos are capable of and deserves or deserved the honor of being our next national leader? A further mystery is the continued absence of an American ambassador in Manila. I had written in �Uncle Dick and Ate Glo� that such a prolonged absence is an indication of displeasure in Washington with the Arroyo government, and that the new ambassador would likely be posted only after the Arroyo Problem has been resolved, one way or another. I happened to talk to a US Embassy official early last month and she assured me the new ambassador would finally assume her (the designated ambassador is a woman) Manila post by Feb. 25 or thereabouts. She didn�t. Is it because the Arroyo Problem was not resolved, as planned? Saycon�s phone call to Washington on Feb. 23 acquires a sinister significance. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �A TIMEly Story� Sir Abaya, Very informative foods for thought! I can only echo these supposed "patriots" alibis for their action of bastardizing the Pinoy nation, "All for the interest of the country". As if there is only a handful of power hungry "hyenas" living in our motherland. What an ugly animal! As always, please don't stop keeping the silent majority abreast with factual information for us to see the other side of the coin. More power and "God Bless". P.S. Can you touch sometime on the CBCP, church, priests, nuns, other religious groups riding on the current political drama relative to "JOMA home coming plan"? Ador Ramoso, [email protected] Atlanta, Georgia, March 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Sir: Just like you, I will believe an internationally renowned journal, with a reputation for accuracy, like TIME magazine, before I believe anything from scoundrels like Peping Cojuangco and Boy Saycon. Peping Cojuangco and Cory Aquino have the script to their "I take the high road, you take the low road" routine down pat. They have been playing this farce to a credulous nation for years. While Cory indulges in prayer and consorts with the likes of Cardinal Sin, giving the impression of virtue and being above the fray, Peping takes care of the dirty tricks and the backroom deals. They have been carrying out this act since EDSA. That is why, while Cory played the saint, Peping made deals with Marcos cronies and traditional politicians, disposed favors for a fee, cornered the barter trade in the South and jueteng in Luzon, played politics with some of the generals, and raised a private "yellow" army. The act was performed so seamlessly that, when Peping made a pact with Danding Cojuangco and betrayed the memory of Ninoy Aquino, Cory never let out a peep. Of course, Ninoy was dead and nothing could bring him back to life. So better to take the money for posterity. After all, the money could come in handy in a crunch, such as raising funds for a coup against any uncooperative administration. While Peping has been getting down and dirty, Cory would have the world believe that she is oblivious to all the shenanigans going on around her. Like the piano player in the honky-tonk, she wants everyone to believe that she only indulges in more sublime endeavors, unaware of all the fornicating that goes on. Juan Deiparine, [email protected] Toril, Davao City, March 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Copy furnished) I don't how the ruling elite in Bangsa Kasuko-an perceive the situation. I agree with Mr. Tony Abaya. But beyond analysis and understanding, and agreeing with Mr. Abaya (who does not like my ex UP President, Dr. Jose Abueva) so what? Thomas Friedman again. Responding to a fiery Afghan Mujaheddin in a lecture in London that Afghanistan was like that, i.e., the warlords killing each other especially those ignorant enough to follow the thinking of their medieval warlods, like in the Philippines. Friedman -- and of course, we don't need this New York Times columnist, much less an "outsider", to tell us about this. He told the Afghan Mujaheddin that what he was saying was nonsense. OUTSIDERS in Afghanistan and Lebanon could play with their countries as if they were marionettes because the INSIDERS did not have enough sense to get together to make a fist. Read on. And reflect of course. Cesar Torres, [email protected] March 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Your wrote: �The tendency to brag about authorship of a successful overthrow, and to deny involvement in an unsuccessful one, is so very Filipino.�.. Gratuitous. It's a HUMAN trait, not a PINOY trait. We need to uplift ourselves Pinoy not put down. Anyway, keep your insightful articles coming! Louie Fernandez, [email protected] March 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Damn, that's a good analysis! Isn't the Rejectionist faction of CPP pretty much a shadow of its former self these days? David de Padua2, [email protected] March 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww You wrote: (The tendency to brag about authorship of a successful overthrow, and to deny involvement in an unsuccessful one, is so very Filipino. The presence of a TIME reporter in the Cojuangco house during those delicate hours suggests supreme confidence that the overthrow attempt would succeed, and TIME was let in on it to record for posterity their heroic roles in it. That is my interpretation of this flap.)...acabaya THE PHILIPPINE SCENARIO IS INFESTED WITH SWIMMING CROCODILES. GLORIA HAS HER OWN ENTOURAGE OF CORRUPT FILIPINOS WILLING TO TORPEDO DOWN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES...FROM CONSTITUTIONAL-REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY TO A MISNOMER PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT. ALL OF THEM ARE THE SAME. MAY GOD HAVE MERCY IN ALL OF THEM.....THOSE WHO COULD NOT ESCAPE THE COUNTRY. AS FAR AS THE UNITED STATES....YOU HAVE EMPHASIZED ONLY THE SIDE OF CHENEY AS A FACTOR WHO IS AGAINST ARROYO FOR ENTERING INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH CHINA. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT THEY COULD BE AGAINST ARROYO BECAUSE SHE HAS ALREADY SET THE STAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT TO BECOME A PERMANENT HEAD OF A POLITICAL PARTY THAT WILL DOMINATE ALL THE FUNCTIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT LIKE IN COMMUNIST CHINA? AND SHE DID AND STILL DOING IT BY POLITICIZING ALL THE BRANCHES OF THE GOVERNMENT, USING THE PEOPLES' MONEY TO BUY PEOPLES' LOYALTY. I KNOW. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT POLITICS. THE COMMON GOOD IS NOT AS IT REALLY MEANT. TAYU-TAYO, SILA-SILA, KAMI-KAMI LAMANG. THANKS ANYWAY. Ms. Ott, [email protected] March 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Applause to you! As usual, you are so sharp. You do not take on topics which you do not have vast knowledge of but surprise - one of the reactions to your posting on Botomo@yahoogroups (about the communist takeover) said that you are too showy by enumerating events and trying to prove that you are authoritative on many matters! I wonder what they will say if you do not refer to events and people to substantiate your stands? I wonder, sir, if it will ever get to this: people will eventually choose to forgive the sins of Gloria as the only alternative left for this country to move forward? Will they soon realize that to get rid of her is more scary? I am pro-Gloria so I have been telling people that. But what do you think about the people in general? Or those that remain undecided on issues as can be gleaned from SWS surveys the percentage of which is still substantial? Would you like to take that up in your future articles? Thank you and good day! Jojo Labayen, [email protected] March 04, 2006 MY REPLY. GMA has become such a hate object it would be difficult for her to recover the moral high ground., without which she will not be able to govern effectively. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww . In a message dated 3/4/2006 3:58:57 AM Mountain Standard Time, [email protected] writes: �I happened to talk to a US Embassy official early last month and she assured me the new ambassador would finally assume her (the designated ambassador is a woman) Manila post by Feb. 25 or thereabouts. She didn�t. Is it because the Arroyo Problem was not resolved, as planned? Saycon�s phone call to Washington on Feb. 23 acquires a sinister significance.� . . . . And the plot thickens . . . . Roman Farol, [email protected] March 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Philippines newspapers and especially some columnists have lately been playing up the "alliance" between the Rightists (read "restive" military) and the Leftists. The term "restive" military is also an invention of the press, which is the fodder for their "restiveness". Is this for real? Maybe. But it will not last because the military hates the Left. Just look at how Panfilo Lacson's dagger eyes cast on ex-Red Victor Corpuz whenever the latter shows up at the Senate to present one more of Lacson's ex-factotums to testify on his alleged wrongdoings. But of course there are a lot of other pinkos or mere spouters of pseudoleftist phraseology including clerics at the hierarchical level of the Roman Catholic Church who still fatten from the feeding troughs of the government-operated casinos. The Rightist can very well sleep soundly with them sans Valium and should the day come when the caudillo emerges from the wings they will have them all as "kept women". There are Leftists with more impressive credential than mere rabble-rousers, like Francisco Nemenzo, former president of the University of the Philippines. He is not really a good ideologue for he has written little, resting his roseate laurels more on his reputation as a senior Leftist, the leader of the faction which was Menshevikized by Jose Maria Sison, alleged chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, before most Filipinos were even born. More prolific is Walden Bello, a sociology professor of the same university, who essays discontent from shantytown to Starbucks Caf�, where only Mormons would shy away from. The "restive" military which henceforth we shall call the We-Dream-You-Die Cult following their puerile slogan do need these kind of people to lend their "cause" gravitas. Their refurbished dream as adumbrated by Walden Bello and less gifted hacks is to develop the Latino-Andean model of a left-leaning military leadership which would be able to stand up to the Great Satan of globalization. This is a tall order since many Filipinos dream of America as the place to live and die and for their offspring to thrive, become real Americans, not just earn the derisive label "Fil-Am" applied to Filipinos whose knowledge of America is limited to Hollywood hasta la vista one-liners and the infinite wonders of Disneyland. A poor Filipino parent using all his wits and the resources of his extended family can scrape up one hundred thousand pesos, really not much, but a fortune in this mas o menos society, to be able to send his child as a care-giver, the bottomest of entry occupation, to the Land of Promise. Neither Gloria Arroyo's flunkies nor the Leftist-Rightist aspirers would like to speak nor even acknowledge the veracity of this awkward paramount truth. As in all poor societies there is a conspiracy of silence against the poor. So this penny-ante game of political poker is played by a bunch of mealy-mouthed four-flushers as watchers from the international press try to divine what is going on. It is a question of legitimacy, most of them say, like in Thailand where an Oriental Berloscuni has captured all of Boardwalk. No one can gainsay this. Mrs. Arroyo may have cheated. She had gone almost halfway to admitting it until the man who was to have been star witness disappeared and then reappeared after he gained the pluck to play half clown half insane. Corruption is rampant but this is the way of life in the Third World. UN development agency bureaucrats have developed the paradigm for dealing with this which says that if even just fifteen percent of aid money reaches the intended targets they done a mighty good job. But if it is a question of legitimacy indeed as it appears to be, what is the cure that is not worse than the ailment? If there is any person who has thought of this, he or she should be the Nobel peace laureate for the next ten years. The Third World was better off when they were colonies. But lo Thailand was never colonized, Nepal was not, nor was that ancient Christian realm of dusty death called Ethiopia ever. Mrs. Arroyo declared a state of emergency, or some kind of it, to deal with the perceived discontent. Indira Ghandi had done the same and pursued it with much more vigor. And, of course, Marcos invented chaos to declare himself consul for life. She received a lot of deserved flak from the international community. But her short-lived order may have achieved something of limited effect, which, if it was the intended purpose, worked. We recall that much unrest has been fueled by mobs for hire. If the hiring rate was three hundred pesos per rally as had been bruited about by some investigative journalists the emergency order might have pushed the hiring rate high enough to bust the budget of the mischief-makers. If that was indeed the strategy of Mrs. Arroyo then some credit should be given to this diminutive girl. I live in Baguio where so many "Cavs" (short for cavaliers, as the Philippine Military Academy graduates refer to themselves) frequently visit. One evening at a restaurant during an earlier season of military "restiveness" I saw a man pacing the spaces between tables. He wasn't ordering anything but appeared to be anxiously waiting for someone�his handler probably, who never materialized. He was of the military type: high cut, government-issue black shoes, black socks and dark trousers but he couldn't possibly be a Cav, too coarse and too impecunious to sit at a table, the type We-Dream-You-Die Cult Valkyrie Ninez Cacho Olivares wouldn't touch with a twenty-foot pole. He was dividing his attention between the street below and the entrance, frequently glancing at his watch. These are the men who have to be fed by coup-plotters. Obviously this hulk could not be sustained on a diet of fishballs sold at the edge of Burnham Park but on red meat. Sustaining these creatures is the problem of the aspiring caudillos. Ross Tipon, [email protected] Baguio City, March 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Let us pray for our COUNTRY THE PHILIPPINES Tthe media is the one POISONING the mind of the PILIPINO POEPLE as if the MEDIA DO NOT LOVE OUR COUNTRY.... Iinstead of INTERVIEWING WHAT IS GOOD FOR OUR COUNTRY THEY ARE ALWAYS INTERVIEWING THOSE AGAINST. INSTEAD OF STOP POLITICKING UNTIL 2010....the media wants gulo. Nakaka pagod na ....lalo na ang CHANNEL 2 they are very CRITICAL OF THE PRESIDENT lahat ng gawin ng presidente ay MALE. wala na silang praise sa presidente. Ibalik mo ang scenary before the election... Only ROCO AND GMA are qualified to be PRESIDENT and no more. Then we have PPCRV in every CATHOLIC CHURCH to guide the VOTING OF THE POEPLE then right after the election the CBCP announce that there are no CHEATING. Bakit pati BISHOP SUMASALE PARA IBAGSAK ANG BANSANG PHILIPINES. LET US PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY THE PHILIPPINES. AND THE MINDS OF THE OPPOSITION. SANA MAG WORK NA LANG SILA UP TO 2010 tapos sa 2010 na sila mapolitico. Myrna Mateo, [email protected] March 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Good day! In case you might have missed it, Ms. Tingting Cojaungco's story re: Nelly Sendayen's Time article appears on Philippine Star today. I thought it might help you to re-assess your earlier suspicion as contained in your latest article. I am convinced of their innocence after reading it and because I have seen Tingting up close numerous times when I was working in a hotel many years back. She's such a fine lady. In fact, even if I was convinced in your article about their involvement, it didn't diminish my admiration for her, GMA fanatic that I am. Enrique Labayen, [email protected] March 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Wouldn't put much sinister thought to the absence of an ambassador here. I read in the papers that a US ambassador is also absent in Australia for a year! I think Bush and Rice are so focused on the Middle East they forgot other countries exist. I agree with your assessment of Peping and Saycon. They are so puffed up with self importance. They couldn't stand the thought that they have become nobodies. Rosario Billano, chatspacific.net.ph March 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Reactions to �Sleeping with the Communists� (Feb. 28, 2006) Sir Tony, Please forgive me for the indescretion but sir the military is not that naive. We have a lot of scholars who are well learned on the topic of communism. In fact, Col Fermin De Leon's (PMA 77) dissertation deconstructed the Philosophy of Jose Maria Sison. There are a lot of graduates of PMA who are adept in thepPhilosophical enterprise of marx and lenin. The Idea in itself does not bother the military conservative psyche. The military to me I believe should not consider communism as a disease but rather as philosphy that would try to explain the flights of the poor and why the problem of insurgents persist in our country even though the time seems already inappropriatte. Imagine that our insurgency is now becoming the model of other countries insurgents. Common enemy to unite a warring faction is not a new concept. But if there is a chance of success, and if there is a cure that would help heal the wounds that would later on merely leave a scar behind a smile of peace and prosperity. The Question then is why not? Vonne Villanueva, [email protected] March 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Excellent! This should be beamed at the highest decibel possible to the communists, naive burgis and idealistc Magdalo warriors "in da istupid Pilipins" and to Comrade JOMA who fights for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the safe haven of capitalistic Utrecht. Peace and Joy Every Conscious Moment! Tom and Ruth de Guzman, [email protected] March 06, 2006 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |