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Friday, July 08, 2005
Ledesma: If Manila burns
By Ledesma: If Manila burns
"The reproduction of the tape from what could be a voluminous "mother-of-all-tapes" obviously took over a year to edit but lawyer Paguia and whoever were his conspirators, including Marcos' former ace propagandists, Kit Tatad, did an excellent damaging piece of recording that is now rending the nation to nuts and loose bolts."
IT'S unfortunate, but the way things are going we are bound to explode and there is no guessing how we shall be shredded into smithereens. The late Teddyman Benigno, the doomsayer of the Philippine Star, never guessed that what will trigger the social upheaval will be an illegally tapped, spliced and obviously expurgated conversation between President Arroyo and Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.
The reproduction of the tape from what could be a voluminous "mother-of-all-tapes" obviously took over a year to edit but lawyer Paguia and whoever were his conspirators, including Marcos' former ace propagandists, Kit Tatad, did an excellent damaging piece of recording that is now rending the nation to nuts and loose bolts.
Lamentably we, the madlang tao, are hypnotized to believe that the confession of GMA is tantamount to admitting she rigged the elections. Maybe there was that indications, but maybe not. It all depends on one's biases and prejudices. But when you hear only an excerpt, which was spliced from the whole, so much is missing to enable one to arrive at the truth and the crux of what is being debated as moral and legal.
If you dabble at editing with the use of digital and computer instruments, it is not difficult to comprehend how the expurgated piece of damaging taped episode came about.
I'd say that Paguia and his associates succeeded in their agenda. They fed on the craving of the opposition to get back to power. They fueled the burning plot of the communists to devastate the democratic institution. They stirred the consuming ambition of some military generals in the autumn of their years to have a taste of political power.
Absolute power if we hear Gen. Fortunato Abat right. Add to that the rats that jumped the ship and joined the conspiracy to topple a government led by a President who did an act of contrition which the popish leaders refuse to believe and forgive and we have a situation good enough for a confused nation to
submit to the spirit of the mob and civil disorder.
But what's the rub? Our peso plunges to an all-time low and along with the crumbling in the stock market. Ironically, we ejaculate at our masochism. We applaud the lunacy in the halls of congress, we don't mind losing sleep as we glue our ears listening to an abridged tape unmindful that all the while we slip closer to the brink of the unknown. Hunger has stalked the poor who would never understand why their peso, strong at P53 to a dollar a month ago now breaching P56 and going down farther still.
The threat of civil war is not farfetched. I can see Teddyman Benigno smiling but amazed at our foolishness and suicidal penchant of securing the noose in our necks and plunging into an abysmal pit of perdition. The conspirators with their mobs and army will siege the seat of power but I can say with certainty that sooner than their jubilation reach a crescendo will they quickly turn against each other to claim the thrown. This is the trigger of civil war and I hope that I am wrong.
While chaos reign and Metro Manila burns, the Republic of Mindanao will be born. As soon as a revolutionary government or the like is declared by whomsoever in Imperial Manila, the birth of a new nation will emerged. It's not sedition.
Mindanawons have seen spectacles of power grab in Metro Manila. It has always been Metro Manilans that matters most all the time. They have to be appeased, cajoled and provided with all the necessary amenities and government services least they, a million maybe a little more, resort to another people power that could lead to another power grab.
Mindanao gets the morsel. The centrist government had a mindset that we are not ready for the infrastructures that Luzon and Metro Manila need. Billions are poured to make the National Capital Region a haven for domestic and foreign investments.
What's there for Mindanao? We have roads and bridges that cannot be finished because the limited budget for these cannot be released. To add insult to injury, Mindanao-based contractors cannot even bid for the projects because the planners saw to it that only Manila-based and foreign contractors can qualify.
I can add more to this litany of iniquities and diabolic scheme of isolating Mindanao. In fairness let me add however, that only during the term of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that irrigation projects, roads, agricultural support projects and the graft-ridden Davao International Airport which were started way back during the term of Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and the decadent regime of Joseph Estrada, were accomplished.
Manila can burn. It can self destruct along with the wrangling politicians and the insurgent factions of whatever persuasions. But the gale that will come from the national capital region will no longer devastate Mindanao. The Mindanaowons have learned enough, suffered enough and endured enough to be made to play the role of spectator of a stupidity that's unfolding. The Mindanaowons will no longer stand idly in acquiescence to what a few thousands Metro Manilans decide for over 75-million Filipinos.
Listen to the silence of Mindanao and don't mistake the delirious celebration that will follow once the new centurions step into the portals of Malacañang Palace.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 8, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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