alacaÑang has said the
opposition should drop its requirement that those seeking endorsement as its
official candidates commit themselves into supporting the impeachment complaint
planned to be filed against Gloria Arroyo when the next Congress opens. It said
the impeach-Gloria plank is divisive and erodes the gains on the economic front.
It’s time to move forward.
We don’t see the opposition anytime soon accepting the
Palace’s invitation to commit suicide. The opposition cannot allow itself to
abandon the task of making the elections a referendum on the Arroyo
administration.
Gloria stole the election of 2004. All her subsequent sins
derive from this unforgivable assault on democracy and constitutional processes.
The attempts to castrate the other branches of government such as EO 464 were
prompted by the need to cover up the ‘dagdag bawas" operation of former election
commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. The prostitution of the House was resorted to
in order to block her impeachment.
The same was true with the crackdown on the people’s
fundamental rights and basic liberties through the ban on rallies and
demonstrations and the declaration of a state of national emergency. The failed
attempt to trash the 1987 Constitution was the logical end-result of an
obsession to stay in power without the consent of the governed.
Now, there is more reason to impeach Gloria. Or at least to
demonstrate to her and her loyal "trapos" that, no, the people will no longer
stand idly by as they dismantle pillar by pillar the structures of democracy
restored in 1986.
We are now seeing a surge in anti-communist hysteria.
Aboveground leaders of the Left are being hauled to jail on trumped-up charges.
Dissenters are being killed like dogs. The government is threatening to revive
the Anti-Subversion Law. All this in the name purportedly of economic growth.
Were we not offered this spurious choice between freedom and
bread before? The last time the enemies of progress were the communists and the
oligarchs. The people then were about to kick out the cheating and thieving
bastards. The bastards made sure they stayed in power by declaring martial law.
Now the same enemies – the communist and reactionary elites –
are being resurrected. It’s no coincidence that the Red-baiting comes before an
election where the people are again poised to throw out the bastards.
Tyranny is afoot. Let’s slay it before it again devours us.
