Rant all you can
I have never, like Sor Tessie, a distant aunt, stood in front of a army tank on EDSA more than 20 years ago. I have not experienced a night on the picket lines like my old friend Nina, who ran the risk of giving birth on the sidewalk rather than give up the fight for a group of laborers on strike. I have never attended a prayer rally or walked with uplifted fists in the streets with any group of protesters. A group of co-workers and I became one with the flood of humanity on EDSA once, in 2001, and as we walked past the Richmond Hotel a convoy of black Pajeros stopped in the hotel driveway and let out a diminutive lady in a yellow dress. She turned to us and waved. It was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
I find it embarrassing to think that the first and only time I decided to speak up for my country resulted in the coming into power of probably the most devious politican ever to sit as President of the Philippines. GMA, through her prowess as an economist has manipulated the face of capitalism so that it has become the opium of the middle class. Through the remittances of the country’s #1 export—Engr. Juan and Caregiver Juana, our OFWs—she has managed to gloat over a strong economy, lulling the income-earning pinoy into complacency. Add to that the income from the country’s #2 export—its minerals which are now being extracted with a vengeance by numerous foreign mining companies, and you get a mall-going, midnight-sale hunting, gimmick-going Johnny and Jhona. It is this complacency, when disrupted by heavy traffic on a working day, that keeps the middle-class pinoy from ever doing another EDSA.
GMA allows us the simplest freedom: we can complain. People in the media can rant against the corruption of her government, blogs can rant and rage against any public official with no fear of Marcos Martial Law style retaliation. She knows that as long as people are allowed to complain that is all we will ever do. There will be no marches that will cross the line at Mendiola, the man in the street will not walk with the Magdalo along the avenues of Makati, and he will not link arms with anyone else at the lobby of the Manila Peninsula to stand for what Senator Trillanes and General Danny Lim were trying to say last Thursday Nov. 29.
And what were they trying to say? They were telling us to look beyond the nips and tucks that GMA has made on the face of the Philippines and see the gangrenous flesh underneath. The diseased flesh must be excised to keep the healthy parts of the body from getting sick.
But I suppose we were too busy complaining about the traffic to hear them.
Who is counting the victims?
“If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”
John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence
Sam tells me he is in favor of abolishing the death penalty, because there are countless people on death row that may be innocent, and lack only the means to prove it.
While I agree with the fact that there may be innocent people on death row, I cannot ignore the fact that there are guilty people as well.
I am for the penalizing of people guilty of heinous crimes. I am for sending to death row ANY man who has been found guilty of raping his own daughter, raping a child, raping and killing any woman, whatever social stature she may have been in.
First, fix the system. Fix the system, find a bunch of people who actually care about the people in jail. Take note that I do not say “criminals in jail” as we all know there are a lot of people in our jails who are as innocent as the person beside you on the bus. Take that pork barrel and use it to put up agencies to aid and assist NGOs who are working towards bringing innocent people and children out of our prisons.
Do you think that repealing the death penalty has put these people’s fears to rest? NO! They are still in prison, they are still in jails. Nothing in the abolishing of the death penalty has changed their situation. Courts that are lazy, lawyers and lawmen who can be bought will still make a travesty of justice whether the death penalty exists or not.
On the other hand, the number of victims of crimes, heinous or otherwise, can only rise, as criminals no longer have to fear death at the end of a sentence.
To those who think that the death penalty has no place in this country, put yourself in this scenario. Imagine that someone had come in to your house, raped your daughter or your wife or your sister or your mother. Imagine that someone had waited for your unsuspecting son on a dark street and stabbed him several times and left him there to die, for no apparent reason.
Now ask yourself this: can you sleep while the criminal who did this is still alive?
The Fever is Rising
But the Philippines isn’t even breaking into a sweat.
In Germany, the venue of this year’s World Cup, worker’s unions are calling for flexible work schedules so that workers can watch the games and not be penalized for absences.
With the recently concluded FA Cup Finals (smashing game between the Reds and the Hammers) finding out where our expat bosses were at certain times of the working day was getting to be a cinch. All we did was check their calendars. If there was a football game showing live in the afternoon then we wouldn’t expect them to be back after lunch, or if there was a game early in the morning, chances are we wouldn’t be seeing them till after lunch.
It’s been four years since I was first pulled into the football frenzy individually by my boss and Sam, and the heat is on for us again as the World Cup begins in less than a month. If 11 million viewers watched the FA Cup Finals on the BBC, imagine how many people will be tuned in for the games in Germany.
There may still be hope for us yet, here in the Pinas where the hoop, and not the goal and crossbar, is king. My former co-worker Edwin (who used to think football was such a slow game because in 90 minutes only two or three points were scored at best, compared to basketball where you can score over a hundred) can now identify football jerseys at a glance, and rattle off squad members faster than one can say NBA. But then he learned to do that in the three years he’s been in Singapore, which is also football country.
My hope is that the Rockwell parking lot (or some such public area, but sans ignorant emcees) be again made the venue for even just the finals, or that the local cable companies pick up the games and show them live or if not then same day delayed.
My hope is that the Philippine Sports Commission include football in its Philippine Sports Talent Identification Program. That their TOP-START program not be limited to the predictable basketball but include football as well.
My hope is that enough exposure be given to football as a game not just for coño kids who go to schools with huge campuses with more than enough room for three football fields, but also for street kids who can lean how to dribble a ball with their bodies and not just their hands. If children in refugee camps can learn to play football, then our kids can learn it as well.
My hope is that if football is helping solve the problems in the war-torn areas of the world, then maybe it can help solve some of our problems as well.
The last straw? Not!
I had started to write this post with just the first part of the title, ending at the question mark. But recent events has forced me to append the exclamation.
When I first heard the news of the Fort Bonifacio stand-off I thought this might be it, the proverbial last straw for the Marines. And perhaps rightly so, as it is the Military who have the biggest capability to get anything going in the way of change. No matter what legions of progressives tell you about the masses who must lead the forces of change, it will still be the Military who will make the decisive action that supporters will rally behind. Even EDSA 1 will prove this. And especially so will EDSA 2.
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