EVEN if former senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr.’s case had to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, it is still imponderable how, with the amount involved, there is left even a trace of doubt that he had a role to play in the crime. In any case, his acquittal makes laughingstock of a justice system that sends a cell phone thief to prison but sets free a senator who, by all accounts, is complicit in the theft of millions of pesos.
Whammy number three: The same oligarchs and trapos who refuse positive change in social structures take turns running for office. They and nobody else keep winning in our elections because the worker-farmer class has no party and no candidates from among them. Hence, trapos are able to maintain the status quo on systems that work in their favor. They are always in a position to make sure that substantive reforms fail that are inimical to their interests, like giving the working class a voice in government.
House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s draft and Senator Revilla’s acquittal are living proofs that if we want to change the trapos, whose exclusive rule is at the heart of our social problems, they should not be the ones to draft the changes.
How then can we change? It would seem that we have two alternatives, not counting the third and bloody one of the communists.
One is a revolutionary government that will counter the oligarchy’s status-quo maintaining moves with more democratic structures like proportionate representation through public-institution parties that are funded by the government (thus giving the working class power and money to found their own party) and a shift to voting for parties with a social philosophy and not for wishy-washy individuals.
Judging from the way the opposition is freaking out and leaving no irrational stone unturned, it would seem like Duterte is the enemy at the gate of their heavily-fortified (with archaic laws and systems) castles of power and privilege. Like they don’t want his drug war, his alliance with the Chinese, his shift to federalism, his fight against corruption to succeed because that would make him more popular and popularity would give him added daring to further threaten their power zones.
The other alternative is to imitate the French “Yellow Vest”movement, except that because “Yellow” is the color of the Aquino-Cojuangco faction of the oligarchy, we should probably wear “Green Vests” as we congregate and march in the streets proclaiming “We are the People from whom political power emanates. We are the people, your masters, who are done with you enslaving us instead.”
The danger here is communists joining the protest in “Red Vests” and making it bloody. Thus, is a revolutionary government our best bet for dodging “whammy three,” the killer punch of oligarchs?