Monday, February 18, 2008 Mongaya: Protest fatigue? By Anol Mongaya Panahom
A FRIEND from Manila asked a hypothetical question over hot big paper cups of imported coffee. If I were handling the NBN-ZTE crisis for Malacañang right now, what would I recommend?
I said basically the Palace only needs to survive 2008. And we still need to see if the opposition, civil society, the militants, and the church could stir up a political storm strong enough to sweep President Arroyo out of Malacañang.
The wind is definitely blowing right now. But if the 10,000-strong rally in Makati is an indicator, President Arroyo can take a rest.
It seems the anti-Arroyo forces still cannot muster sufficient warm bodies in rallies adequate enough to trigger panic among Arroyo supporters.
The difference now is the active participation of church people in standing up with Jun Lozada in his reluctant quest to uphold the truth in the NBN-ZTE deal. But I still recall the spontaneous outburst of popular protest that is absent today.
Is this because of protest fatigue after two Edsa uprisings that did not result in basic socio-economic and political changes? Or, perhaps our patient people want to wait for 2010.
***
I had spirited discussions recently with people I used to be with during my activist days. And I always tell them about the number of fellow activists then who could easily organize and mobilize mass actions.
I remember that time when Fr. Rudy Romano was abducted. During this time, there was also a parallel state attack on less known protest leaders. But still, we could easily re-group and organize mass actions that number 5,000 to 10,000 in Cebu. In Manila, our counterparts then could gather 50,000 to hundreds of thousands.
However, Cebu protest leaders could hardly group even a thousand today. In Manila, a major joint mobilization of the opposition, civil society, and militant groups could only muster 10,000.
***
I thought at first that the March 5, 2008 congressional hearing on luxury car smuggling would be in Cebu. We surely want the hearing here for closer scrutiny by the local media. As of the moment, Cebu relies on the coverage of the hearings at the Batasan complex by a handful of journalists. I just hope local news outlets could afford to send more journalists to cover the next hearings.
I understand that there are different trends in the ongoing hearings right now.
One, some congressmen like Reps. Tony Cuenco and Raul del Mar want to zero in on people who could be prosecuted. The most vulnerable right now are some LTO officers.
Two, Bayan Muna’s Teddy Casiño has zeroed in on the role of former LTO boss Reynaldo Berroya using the list of cars registered in Cebu but with Manila plate numbers.
Three, Reps. Nerry Soon-Ruiz and Mitos Magsaysay of Subic focused on defining the role of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group and the Bureau of Customs to avoid abuse, extortion and overlapping of functions.
So far, no congressman has taken the cudgels for Cebu’s small car assemblers who sell multicabs and similar affordable vehicles that are not in competition to the ones being sold by members of the Cebu Auto Dealers Association. These assemblers are at a loss right now because they could not get their units registered.
(superbalita@sunstar.com.ph or anol.blogs.friendster.com/anols_blog)
