Saturday, November 18, 2006 Carvajal: Thank God, I’m a senior citizen By Orlando P. Carvajal BreakPoint
WITH the way things are going in this country, the killings and all, I am glad I am now three years into senior citizenship. With the way PGMA continues to ignore the people’s demand for reforms, I can feel the anger and frustration building up to a point when I just want to blast this corrupt government to kingdom come.
Thank God, however, I am older and wiser. I haven’t lost the idealism of my youth but I am no longer young and foolish. More importantly I am not equal anymore to the physical challenge that comes with the pursuit of hard ideals.
Look at Gringo. He is as smart as they come but his young pursuers were faster. He lost to his advancing years.
The latest survey shows that we are more corrupt this year than last. The killings of journalists, activists, militant workers and farmers continue unabated. Everyday we get closer and closer to being under a de facto Martial Law with rebellion charges against any and all detractors of the administration being filed at the slightest provocation. You cannot even criticize the First Gentleman without the risk of being arrested for libel. Which makes for a threat to freedom of the press, a threat to democracy.
PGMA is defending democracy with measures that endanger democracy even more. That is because, as we all know only too well, she is not really defending democracy. She is defending herself and she is by no means democratic about it.
Lately, PGMA asked the police and the Melo Commission to brief the public on everything that is being done to stop the killings. The briefing must be really brief because all indications are that nothing is being done to stop the killings.
We should only be briefed of results because we want sincerity and not empty propaganda. Whatever the administration is doing to stop summary executions is irrelevant without positive results. There is still too much bloodshed going on and it shows no signs of abating.
This administration’s law enforcement agencies are, therefore, guilty of either of two things. They are at best incompetent. Which is hard to believe because the Filipino has shown he can be the best in whatever he wants to do including police work or, they are at worst complicit. That is more believable, hence terrifying.
Given all that, as I have said, the anger and frustration really builds up to test your wisdom and sanity to the limit. Thank God, therefore, that I am a senior citizen. The better part of valor in the face of that fact and the nastiness of the present situation are to stick to my pen as a weapon of choice in slaying today’s politico-economic dragons that breathe the fire of death. Anyway, the pen might still prove mightier than the sword once more.
