I was in the camp when soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan staged a mutiny against the government. The then group commander was Honasan’s former batchmate in the Philippine Military Academy, but he was silent and did not join the mutiny. Instead, he asked subordinates whose loyalty he could rely on to monitor the movement of his fellow soldiers and report it to Camp Crame. It was the constitutional task of his group after all.
I was with some of the soldiers in a room listening to the coverage of the mutiny on radio and I remember joking that there I was being detained for daring to rebel against the government and yet the people detaining me had the mindset of rebels themselves. Many soldiers were obviously pro-Honasan.
It was then that I noted that people, no matter which side of the fence they are on, are the same. They always rise up against any iniquity. And they surely resent corruption, like the kind we are seeing now. Corruption is a continuing thing and the flood control corruption is but the latest. Some people are encouraging soldiers to rise up but thank God their adherence to the Constitution has remained solid.
This has led to questions of whether our brand of liberal democracy can ever get a leadership that is not only clean but also competent enough to develop the economy. But even in countries where Marxism has triumphed, corruption still rears its ugly head. That is why we are hearing talks about a continuing revolution.
If we are to change as a nation, though, change must not be in a cycle. It must not be an up-and-down thing but must be done step by step going upward. As long as we are continuing to move upward, we should get to the higher levels eventually. From the third level to eventually the first level without blood being shed.
That has been my question even when I was still in the revolutionary movement. Can true change be achieved without blood being spent? Many people have wasted their lives advancing a revolution that, in the country, has yet to win. Other countries, like China, have won, but they still have to show that genuine equality is possible among people.
This has resulted in frustration, especially among those who thought genuine change can be had during their lifetime. Some leaders have asked the question: can this nation ever become great? The answer was given before. If all good and principled men work together to achieve that goal, it can. We just don’t have the vehicle to do that.
Politicians once created a political party that its leaders hoped would exist and run on principles. But once the principled leaders got old or left, the political party degenerated into a traditional one or “trapo,” one that exists or functions not based on principles but on personalities.
If we want to create a good political vehicle that exists legally and does not call for blood to be shed, enough principled men must work for it and spend their lifetime, if needed, to achieve it. I remember a leftist of old writing about it. The article’s title? The Foolish Old Man Who Removed
the Mountains.