The Pardoning Party
Let’s keep these pardons going! Why not pardon mass murderers, rapists, and drug lords? We are a nation of enablers, letting these childish acts repeat themselves every few years. We can forgive almost anything these days.
What these soldiers did, I cannot condone. Neither will I condone a pardon.
As much disgust I had for Erap, it was the main reason I could not endorse his pardon. But the Magdalo soldiers, they are different from Estrada, they are principled men, motivated not by greed, but I believe, Love of Country. But that does not excuse rising up, in arms, and setting into motion, a mutiny that would eventually have them all behind bars.
I have seen the same pardon in Gringo Honasan, a man who does not deserve another day in the Free World. As he rose against The Cory Administration, and later on The Arroyo Administration, he will not stop, and men like him cannot stop. They are driven by selfish desires of making their playground the entire Philippines.
Pardon such men, HELL NO!
I refuse to be a mindless liberal, and to coddle these soldiers because they display the same hatred against Gloria as I do.
But what has come of principle, when they are all too ready to accept the script given to them by Esperon and Gloria. The nine soldiers, for all they have gone through, are choosing to give up, when they are winning the battle of principle and honor.
Well, shame on Gloria and shame on these soldiers. We are puppets in their sick play, and to condone a pardon, where these two parties are involved is too much for me to stomach. These soldiers may have been principled when they took arms for that Mutiny, but principled men they no longer are.
But, I cannot altogether condemn them. It took some balls to do what they did. But to say they had no other recourse, when before Oakwood, we did not even know of these men, shows that they did not do everything in their powers to make these issues known, before taking up arms.
Disagree with me all you want, but did these men contact journalists and news agencies? Did these men try to inform civil groups about their grievances? Did they try to form an alliance outside of the military in order to push reforms?
No such actions, only a Mutiny. They did so with the belief that they could air their grievances in such a way that they would get attention. They did so knowing that predecessors such as Gringo Honasan were eventually given pardons.
I respect these men, but I cannot respect their actions. We are a nation governed by laws, and to the extremes we must go, only as our last resort. These men made Mutiny one of their first actions, not their last resort.
tags: arroyo administration, gringo honasan, magdalo soldiers
I agree that the Magdalo soldiers ought not to be pardoned. Two things. One is that a coup d’etat is not the way of the democracy. It is one which is instigated by the few. Two is that a coup d’etat is unconstitutional, which echoes shards of the first.