These special operations in the Philippines

The truth?

Hardly would you know that when it comes to national affairs, maybe uniquely here in the Philippines. You need to discern more, sift well the shaft from the grain. With at least seven years working as a journalist some years back, you don’t bite the bullet from what you read or hear in the news.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not against my kind of profession before. Journalists simply report. They write what the legitimate sources say, even if they feel what the sources blurt out are doubtful. They simply attribute what’s new in an event or a running drama.

I had long wanted to express my thoughts about the running ZTE-NBN issue. Most of what I thought or felt came to be how the subject had developed. As this drama started, I had the feeling this was just another “special operations” by some “news creators” (propagandists). The man-in-the-spotlight (Jun Lozada) was nothing but another pawn in game politics. He was simply a propaganda tool, and is still continues to play his starring role.

When he started his campus tour after the last box-office Senate probe, it became obvious. In his tour, he had nothing else more to say but just reinforce the propaganda he was used for. When news came he was coming to Cebu, my first reaction was: “Oh please, spare us. We’re not dumb here. Unless you have something new to bare, then fly in.”

As it turned out, it was just another tour. Lozada even had the gull to insult Cebu Archbishop Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal. Somebody should have told him the various role the good prince of the Catholic Church did since he came to Cebu to ensure peaceful solutions to various conflicts. Shooting the Cardinal from his hips came out to be a blessing in disguise. It unmasked who he really is, the role he was made to play that sadly impressed many among the still naive new generation.

And there’s holier than thou Leah Navarro, leader of the Black and White Movement, who maligned our Archbishop as “congressmen in a cassock.” The Cardinal could just pray: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sinned against us.” The more-of-Black movement does not really want the truth. It only has motive. Ms. Navarro must have forgetten the essence of her Metro Manila Music Festival award-winning song “Pag-Ibig,” not the government housing agency but LOVE. At 40, her song rings well in my mind with complete lyrics.

Going back to the subject, it is sad that we Filipinos are subjected to many special operations that the Navarro group and many other civil society groups either willingly or unwittingly participated in. Now comes the revealing report in The Manila Standard of my INQUIRER contemporary Christine Herrera: Palace victim of Lacson sting operation.

Wala gyu’y aso nga makomkom, noh? Sa kadugayan, mabatyagan ra gyud ang kamatuoran. Apan unsa pa man ang nagpahipi likud sa mga balita?

Sad how this story in Philippine politics resulted in. From the glory we gained as a nation from our 1986 People Power, look at how we have become with the following pass-on email joke story. It’s about doing business, the ZTE-NBN style:

Three contractors are bidding to fix the White House fence. One from the Philippines , another from Mexico and an American. They go with a White House official to examine the fence.

The American contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.

“Well”, he says, “I’ll figure out the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Mexican contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, “I can do $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.

The Filipino contractor does not measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers: “$2,700.”

The White House official, incredulous says, “What?, You did not even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?” “How do you expect me to consider your service with that bid.”

“Easy, the Pinoy explains”, “$1,000 for you, $1,000 for me and we hire the guy from Mexico .”

The next day the Pinoy got the contract.

Will history repeat?

EDSA 1 ousted Philippine Martial Law dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos in this month 22 years ago, while EDSA 2 brought Joseph Estrada, the Philippine’s version of Ronald Reagan, to jail seven years ago and got convicted last year for plunder.

EDSA 1 beneficiary Corazon Aquino, a former housewife of a witty yet feisty politician Ninoy who was murdered and recognized as hero, completed her term after a series of failed coup de ‘etat mostly operated by a former Army Colonel who later served the country as senator for three terms now.

EDSA 2 beneficiary Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), once a Presidential daughter, assumed from being Vice President the term of the actor she later granted pardon and got elected as President with a 6-year full term in 2004.

Now comes EDSA 3, which for me has yet to happen, even if unruly Estrada loyalists tried to paint their counter-coup with such a name in May 2001 as it gained no military support. Will this happen? Will history repeat itself?

An ESDA 3 scenario may see an ouster of President GMA and, unless some creative hands creep in, will technically benefit a former popular national newscaster now serving as Vice President, Noli de Castro, to assume as the new Commander-in-Chief of the land.

Are the elements of EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 present for EDSA 3 to come into fruition?

EDSA 1 kicked out a dictator of 21 years, one who amassed himself with the nation’s wealth (actually loans from the World Bank and IMF) and used the military to perpetuate himself to power that meant violating human rights. Key to its success was the role of the military that actually staged a coup but were outsmarted by civilian leaders led by then Manila Archbishop Jaime L. Cardinal Sin and politicians who supported his anointed bet for the presidency.

EDSA 2 plucked out a presidential pretender whose political funders only used him to corner government contracts and plundered government funds that should have oiled the nation’s economy from the momentum created by his predecessor, Aquino’s savior from various coup attempts, General Fidel V. Ramos. The military under General Angelo Reyes also played a pivotal role, while the Church settled with leading a mere moral campaign that was more reverberated by civil society organizations.

An EDSA 3 will now deal with an experienced lady politician (as she was exposed through the career of her father Diosdado Macapagal) who apparently didn’t learn from her predecessor’s fate but probably improved on the machinations of the Estrada era. But the military leadership appears to be strongly behind her as the current commanders, especially the Chief of Staff, General Hermogenes C. Esperon, Jr., earned their ranks and positions with their brown noses.

Meanwhile, civil society organizations and the influential business movers and professionals in the country — the middle class — have begun to mobilize their networks against the Administration with the support of former disgruntled GMA Cabinet members.

Save for a few militant bishops and priests, the Church remains passive and, through the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), plus a little voice from the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP), only issued a morality call, very much unlike the time of Cardinal Sin who required pastoral leaders in his Archdiocese and neighboring dioceses to gather parishioners that built up the sea of human cross along EDSA and Santolon.

Yet, there’s Bro. Eddie Villanueva of Jesus is Lord Movement and Bangon Pilipinas Movement that launched his failed presidential bid, who has entered the dragon, wanting to create an alliance with the CBCP to match what Cardinal Sin had achieved before. Still on the sideline is Bro. MikeVelarde of El Shaddai who seems to be still praying for GMA.

Some ingredients are now present for EDSA 3 to happen, yet many elements are still lacking. The Filipino people have become tired of People Power. In fact, they have become pessimistic, according to sociologist Josephine Aguilar. Filipinos have become frustrated that the Power they mounted in 1986 and 2001 only produced frustrating results.

Filipinos fear that another People Power in 2008 will again just produce nothing better but another round of disappointed expectations.

But what’s the main issue at hand? It’s about a preempted National Broadband Network (NBN) that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) will have granted to ZTE company in China that broker-turned-whistleblower Rodolfo Noel I. Lozada, Jr. revealed into what still remains nothing but a hearsay from a man whose credibility many now, including Tita Cory and the priests of De La Salle University, are trying to build.

Still, many others would want to resurrect the Hello Garci scandal wanting to match it with Nixon’s Watergate and Jose Pidal to match Estrada’s Jose Velarde, as the Financial Executives of the Philippines (FINEX) just did.

EDSA 3 will only happen if some military leaders, who may be led by AFP deputy chief of staff Vice Admiral Ariston de los Reyes or by any of the three major service commanders — Lt Gen. Pedrito S. Cadungog of the Philippine Air Force, Vice Admiral Rogelio I. Calunsag of the Philippine Navy and Lt. Gen. Alexander B. Yano of the Philippine Army — with the support of any of the commanders of the key area commands in the country, will intervene.

Furthermore, the CBCP, especially Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, must mobilize the people to create another power that the religious packs, civil society organizations and the middle class of Metro Manila are on standby to ride on.

Without these key elements, GMA will stay in power in 2010. And we all will just have to wait who will come to power — either Noli de Castro, Manny Villar, Jose de Venecia, Mar Roxas, Kiko Pangilinan, Loren Legarda or Panfilo Lacson — or some dark horses from the local executives like Alfredo Lim of Manila, Gwendolyn Garcia of Cebu or Tommy Osmeña of Cebu City.

Meanwhile, will history repeat? Maybe. Apparently not.