The Establishment Takes A Walk
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo walks with Vice President Noli de Castro, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, other members of her Cabinet, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, and Philippine National Police Chief Director General Avelino Razon on their way to the Aguinaldo State Dining Room in Malacanang where she presided over the joint Procurement Transparency Group-National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA)-Cabinet Group Meeting Tuesday (Feb. 19). (Rey Baniquet/OPS-NIB Photo)
The farcical Unity Walk of the Establishment. Arroyo and her Cabinet is unified in salvaging their consolidation of power.
It is not that her moral authority is reigning supreme, it is that indecision has bitten the people who have the power to overthrow her government. The question is if the NBN scandal will be enough to push people to the streets, it is the question of whether or not people want to. There is no clear moral authority in our land, not even the church is held up to the pedestal that it once stood up on.
So, who leads the revolution that the people yearn for? Is there a Ninoy amongst us? A Rizal? The best we can muster is Noli De Castro, and he is but a man who has stood beside Gloria Arroyo, keeping the status quo, because he knows he is the leading candidate of 2010.
The question then becomes if The People want to exact their power. And because there lacks the moral authority on both sides, the indecision of the people is the result.
Furthermore, revolution cannot take place if there lacks moral authority because for it to happen, there must be a stark contrast from the before and to the after. If Noli is the after, is this really a revolution?
And so, this is a writer, thinking of a dismal present, and how he can contemplate a replacement for The Arroyo Administration, when he knows not who replaces her is a true change. This is a writer before you, the readers, who hates everything about this Administration, and yet cannot take it upon himself to support anyone other than an ideal that does not exist. Even Jun Lozada, our lone hero at the moment is a man that I wish would never hold office again no matter how courageous his stand is.
The establishment in the picture represents the very antithesis of our ideal. The photograph turns the wheel of thinking as to why we even have such heads of state running our country, and the disgust is overwhelming.
But the fact still is that those who have done the nation wrong must be punished and must not see another day in power. It’s not a choice really, it is what must be done. So indecision, no matter how much we feel it, is put aside because the law of the land must always be implemented, and if one cannot preside over a nation within the boundaries of serving the people, we must act.
We cannot predict what a Noli Presidency can truly be, but even he must realize, that if he indeed rises to the top, he is also on the chopping block. Quite never ending if you think about it, but such is the ongoing dynamics of democracy. Always trying to find the leader who fits our ideals, or at least closely fits it.
The Establishment is clearly not even close to the ideal.
tags: arroyo administration, gloria macapagal arroyo, moral authority, president gloria macapagal arroyo, unity walk, vice president noli de castro
