A worse calamity By Francisco S. Tatad | Posted on October 18, 2013 at 12:01am | 4,387 views 53 The latest natural calamity to hit the country—a killer earthquake that left (at press time) nearly a couple of hundreds dead, an equal number injured, and some three million displaced in Bohol and Cebu—has prompted some to wonder what is it in the stars that causes so much misfortune to strike us under an Aquino administration. Storms, floods, earthquakes, drought, maritime accidents, rebellion, massacres, and lawless violence have been our common lot under Cory and her son PNoy. We know these occurrences are beyond human control. But if nature’s fury is one way by which the Creator communicates to his creatures, the fiercest critics are inclined to believe these calamities are the “wages of sin” not necessarily of the common citizens but rather of those who are tasked to take care of the nation. This takes us to the realm of the arcane, where I can say nothing that might help anyone at all. But I can report what others are saying. Some would like to recall the episode in biblical times when Yahweh sends to Egypt a total of ten plagues to compel the Pharaoh to set the Israelites free. Others would like to recall the earlier episode when Abraham tries to bargain with Yahweh not to destroy the city of Sodom if he finds at least ten innocent people there. Now, are corruption and bribery in the Aquino government and the President’s efforts to finesse and justify them, equal to any of the sins of the Pharaoh or of Sodom? Are there at least ten innocent members of the Cabinet and Congress because of whom these institutions should be spared from destruction? As more and more details of corruption are revealed, we are presented with an incredible picture not many of us ever imagined possible under the regime that self-righteously and sanctimoniously proclaimed itself as the very antithesis of corruption. We have seen corruption in various forms and sizes before, but not this kind of corruption, where its perpetrators seem to believe they could enjoy complete impunity forever. It is the absolute perversion of what the nation has been led to believe from the very beginning. In 2010, not even Aquino’s presidential rivals had the courage to question the pietistic protestations of his “daang matuwid” (straight and narrow path) during the shallow presidential debates. They never even saw that corruption was already manifesting itself in its most naked form through the stark manipulation of the electoral process, which dismantled all the safety features and transparency mechanisms of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines. They failed to guard against the theft of the highest office, which made the plunder of the treasury a fait accompli and superfluous. They were all naïve enough to believe that Aquino’s five-million vote plurality was a legitimate and incontestable margin, so they tried to fall over one another in conceding his “victory.” Under the veil of Aquino’s “kung walang corrupt walang mahirap,” corruption became the biggest elephant in the room. The administration never tried to abolish it; it merely used all the instruments of propaganda to denounce its previous practitioners while enlarging upon their old practice. Not all the facts have been revealed, but from the limited data that has been unearthed so far, it appears that the colossal greed that consumed the likes of Bernard Madoff and others on Wall Street was not less virulent among Aquino’s elect. Budget Secretary Butch Abad is the first witness on the billions released from the so-called “Disbursement Acceleration Program”, and Emilio de Quiros of the Social Security System on the fat bonuses from the government corporations. Where Marcos could claim to have built more roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, ports and airports than all his predecessors combined, Aquino could probably say he has converted and consumed more “pork” than all his predecessors combined. He has, therefore, indulged the proclivities of the most corrupt politicians more than any one of his predecessors, including the one whom he likes to blame for his own frailties, excesses and crimes. He has become by far the biggest corruptor of Congress. Looking at the depth and virulence of the syndicated corruption and crime, one feels like being thrown against the savage currents of a shoreless sea during a tsunami; there is no other way to go quickly but under. Indeed, that’s where the entire nation is going—under. And Aquino is not helping himself any by going to South Korea for a completely avoidable protocolar visit at a time when the aftershocks of the tremor have not ceased, and the Cebuanos and the Boholanos are still trying to dig up the last victims from the rubble of the earthquake. There is no compelling reason for Aquino to fiddle like Nero while Rome burnt. During this visit, the Koreans, according to reports, will honor PNoy’s late father, Ninoy, who as a young man covered the Korean War (1950-53) for the old and more illustrious Manila Times. The Koreans are free to honor anyone they please, including a long-departed cub reporter who covered the war with so many others 60 years ago. But right now we have a calamity to attend to and Aquino’s place is here. Moreover, it is not generally known that Ninoy’s reporting, which the Times editors David Bugoslav, Jose Luna Castro and Emilio Aguilar Cruz helped to render into readable prose, had any impact on the course of that war. When I visited the war memorial museum in Seoul a year ago, I noticed a memorabilia of former President Fidel V. Ramos, who served in that war as a young lieutenant, but nothing associated with any particular correspondent who covered the war. fstatad@gmail
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 08:03:08 +0000
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