SUNSTAR Cebu columnist Orlando Carvajal uses a mix of fable and parable to convey a moral and spiritual lesson to his compatriots. He hopes that Filipinos will recognize themselves and learn from their mistakes to steer this country to a brighter future and themselves out of poverty.
Prompted by the infamous tete-a-tete between Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Juan Ponce Enrile, Mr. Carvajal compares the dictator and Enrile with the hunters. The hunted victims, according to this parable, are the political dissenters who were arrested, tortured, made to disappear and murdered.
The spontaneous revolutionaries of the Edsa revolt failed to take over the reins of government because they were not ready with political machinery. Instead the Enrile-Ramos-Cojuangco faction of the oligarchy took over.
Mr. Carvajal sees a next time coming, when the pent-up anger will rise against the oligarchy. But that time, he claims, they should be ready with the machinery for a government that is truly of the people, for the people and by the people.
I agree, it is time that Filipinos found genuine political parties at barangay grassroots level and that they convince the voters to vote for their program and not for well-known names. Their brain they should use in voting and not accepting culinary and financial seductions nor yielding to intimidation and threat.
A reader, in a letter, joined Carvajal in his indignation at the two tete-a-teters’ sneering lies and blatantly false claims. (SunStar reported on the “self-serving, one-sided, weird tete-a-tete” on September 24)
Carvajal, as a former priest who was detained and interrogated by constables, asks his question: Where are the guardians of morality, the Catholic bishops and clergy? Why do they not lift a moral finger against the outright lies of the son of the actual dictator?
He blames the stupidity of the electorate to follow Bongbong and Imee, who urged the nation to “move on” without her family’s apology to a violated people.
I interpret shortening the text: If Imee is elected senator and/or Bongbong Marcos is elected president, then voters will have sold their dignity and self-respect for P500. In that case Filipinos will prove to be not proud lions but scavenging seagulls that swarm around trawlers to get the rejected small fishes, while the trawler operators will only be happy to keep throwing little fishes to us so we will leave them alone to feast on their bigger catch.
Carvajal pleads for banning forever from holding public office those guilty of the atrocities committed during those dark years. His billion-peso question is: How can Filipinos change from sycophant seagulls into self-respecting lions?
Trying to answer it I hold: By reading all kinds of information, studying the basics of democracy, comparing opinions critically, distinguishing between information and manipulation attempts, adopting good values and discarding bad vices, and of course engaging in politics themselves instead of accepting “participation” granted hypocritically by those who take the decisions autocratically or refuse to act on the known myriad ills that plague the people in this basically rich archipelago.--Erich Wannemacher