Veteran
columnist Mr. Bobit S Avila in his SHOOTING STRAIGHT column in the Philippine
Star published last Aug. 24 made a very insightful explanation about our
tendency to troop to EDSA considering all that is happening under the Duterte
administration – most especially now that the opposition is really milking
every political points they can get from the death of Kian Delos Santos.
Full article quoted
below:
Thirty-four years ago
when Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated as he descended from a plane
that arrived from Taipei at the old Manila International Airport (MIA), the
nation was outraged and millions showed up for his funeral, but then the crony
media could only notice the death of a person who was perched on a tree when he
was struck by lightning. Ninoy’s death ended the 14-year conjugal Marcos
dictatorship and started the reign of the Aquinos in Malacañang.
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| Critics of the President cannot wait for him to be replaced even resorting to the idea of another EDSA revolution on the 34 death anniversary of Ninoy and using the death of Kian there rallying point. (photo credit to the owner) |
During the 1986
presidential campaign, Tita Cory went to town telling the Filipino people that
she was “Talagang walang alam ako,” that she didn’t know how to steal or how to
be corrupt… and we rooted for her and in the end she became the next President
after Pres. Ferdinand Marcos fled to Hawaii. However in hindsight, then
President Cory Aquino under the Freedom Constitution signed the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which allowed her government to distribute
private land to the landless in the nation’s biggest land reform program.
Everything went smoothly
except for that glitch that Tita Cory signed called Stock Distribution Option
(SDO), which allowed the Aquino family to give stocks to the farmers staying in
the Hacienda Luisita rather than land. For us lesser mortals, we lost our
agricultural land, while the Aquinos kept Hacienda Luisita. This is the same
SDO that the Supreme Court (SC) then led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato
Corona declared en banc as unconstitutional… the rest is history.
Since the days Pres.
Cory Aquino and the succeeding presidents after her, including her son P-Noy,
the people attending the celebrations for the EDSA Revolution or Ninoy’s death
have stopped joining. One main reason perhaps is that the majority of the
Filipino people still remained poor, while the rich oligarchs became richer
under the two Aquino presidency. Ultimately, in the 2016 presidential
elections, the electorate veered away from the traditional politicians from
Luzon and supported the candidacy of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte who
rose to Malacañang on the promise to fight a war against illegal drugs, a war
that still rages today. *
This war against drugs
last week ended with the killing of so many people in Caloocan City and snuffed
the life of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos. The death of Kian no doubt sparked
outrage simply because he was underage and could still be rehabilitated.
However, the critics of Pres. Duterte apparently used Kian’s death as the
catalyst that could lead to the downfall of Pres. Duterte. Since Monday was the
34th death anniversary of the late Sen. Ninoy Aquino, many yellow trolls
proposed to their cult members to troop to the EDSA monument in a nationwide
protest against the death of Kian and Duterte’s uncontrolled war against drugs.
But last Monday, the
rains in Metro Manila literally poured on their protest with my Facebook
friends showing me photos of less than 300 protesters at the EDSA Shrine. In
the past, the rains didn’t deter an angry mob from showing up to air their
grievances against the government. How times have changed in the 30 years since
the EDSA Revolt. I would like to believe that the critics of Pres. Duterte
should never have used Ninoy’s death anniversary to protest against the death
of Kian.
In the first place no
less than Pres. Duterte himself already announced that there would be no sacred
cows in the investigation on the killing of Kian. This was clearly a policy
depature from what happened in Baybay, Leyte to Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa
who was killed inside the jail. No doubt this diffused the tension about the
killing of the 17-year-old kid. But it didn’t stop the critics of Pres. Duterte
from proposing an uprising against his government especially when Bureau of
Customs Commissioner Nick Faeldon failed to prevent a P6.4-billion shipment of
“shabu” from China. A week ago, Pres. Duterte stuck to his guns and kept
Faeldon in the BOC. *
No wonder Pres. Duterte
retorted to these calls for an uprising saying, “If there is an uprising, go
ahead all those who do not believe in me. Let us have an uprising.” This
issue reveals to us that the critics of Pres. Duterte just can’t wait to have
him replaced via an unconstitutional way like another EDSA Revolution. But once
more, Pres. Duterte diffused the angst when all of the sudden, he appointed
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director Isidro Lapeña to replace
Nick Faeldon in the BOC.
But like what I already
wrote, the problem with our political opposition is that they cannot seem to
see what should be the priority of our nation. While the death of Kian still
has to be investigated, however pundits call him a mere “Collateral damage” in
the war against drugs and I fully concur. But in my book, the top priority that
Congress needs to do is to act on the impeachment complaint filed against
Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista.
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