"No one likes to live in a messy dwelling."
"No one likes to live in a messy dwelling."
The past days have been quite eventful to say the least. Fourteen people, mostly farmers, were killed in a police operation in Negros Oriental. Reports said that those who carried out the operation were wearing masks, or had their faces covered. Human rights groups said that the killings could have been part of this administration’s anti-communist drive.
A Chinese-manned dredging ship was found docked in Barangay Lagadlarin in the coastal town of Lobo, Batangas. This vessel was set to gather two million cubic meters of sand from Lobo River but the Local Government Unit did not allow the ship to do any dredging alleging that the ship did not have the necessary permits from the LGU. There were also reports of the presence of Chinese dredging and quarrying ships in Zambales.
Chinese ships’ presence was also reported near the Pag-asa Island in the West Philippine Sea.
Journalist and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and the other members of the company’s 2016 Board of Directors had to go to Court to post bail TWICE in one week due to cases filed against them by this administration. Presently, Rappler and Ressa are facing 11 or 12 cases filed in succession within a period of only a little over a year. This kind of government action against a media firm is unprecedented in the country.
Two videos tagging President Rodrigo Duterte’s children as principals in an elaborate big-time drug dealing syndicate surfaced one after another. The ‘revelations’ were narrated by an alias “Bikoy” who said that he was an operative of the syndicate for many years. The first video named the president’s son, Paolo Duterte as a drug lord who received big chunks of money for drug trafficking. Bikoy also said he has seen Paolo Duterte’s dragon tattoo on his back and that this proves the younger Duterte’s being part of a drug trafficking triad.
The second video of “Bikoy” alleged that the name of Duterte’s daughter with partner Honeylet Avanceña, Kitty, is being used by another big drug lord who has amassed many millions of pesos through the illegal drug activities of the same syndicate. The second video said that there is a third video that will be released soon.
As expected, President Duterte claimed that the videos are nothing but black propaganda against his family. Paolo Duterte has tagged opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes as the mastermind behind the videos, which, Trillanes of course denied.
At about the same time that these videos on the Dutertes surfaced, another video trended online and was hotly debated by netizens. This time, it was a sex video of popular singer/songwriter Jim Paredes, a known critic of this administration. Paredes, in a statement admitted that he was the man in the video. He said that it was private and that he did not know how it was made public. It would appear that Paredes was set up.
Towards the end of the week, President Duterte spoke in a PDP-Laban campaign rally in Malabon. It should not have been a big deal because after all, it is campaign season. What roused people’s curiosity was the fact that the President used a bullet-proof glass in front of him as he spoke to the people. He said that the Presidential Security group required him to use the special glass.
To my knowledge, this is the first time that a bullet-proof glass was used by a sitting President when addressing the Filipino people. Is there a threat to the life of Duterte that extra security measures were needed? This was the question asked by people when news about this broke out.
During another speech in Puerto Princesa on April 4, Duterte threatened to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus, arrest all his critics, and wage a revolutionary war until the end of his term if critics do not stop. These are very serious threats that are not made lightly by any official, especially the President.
All these happened in just a little over a week. Such is the present political life in the country.
People continue to get killed daily and it seems that nothing is done to bring murderers to justice. Worse, it is those tasked to keep the peace and secure the people that are often tagged as the perpetrators of these killings.
China is aggressively claiming our territory and getting our natural resources right under our noses. Jobs that should benefit poor Filipinos are given to Chinese nationals. Drug syndicates continue to proliferate and drug lords, just like the killers of innocent lives, are freely roaming our streets.
Journalists and media outfits critical to this administration continue to be harassed are under threat. Anti-Duterte personalities are targeted.
We have a President who threatens to go to war against the very people he is supposed to serve. The father of the nation is lost, it seems.
Our country is our house. And our house is in such a disarray that we urgently need some order. No one likes to live in a messy house. No one wants to have a dictator of a father where the family is always under threat and no one is allowed to speak her/his mind or suffer the consequences.
In this country, we need checks and balances. We need people who will stand up and earnestly clean this mess. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and let our house continue to deteriorate. We cannot close our eyes in the hope that others will come and clean our house for us. We need to act.
It will not be easy to do the cleanup operation. We need to shoo away those who illegally occupy parts of our house. We need to fix things so peace reigns and our families are safe. We need to make the father respect, not threaten his family.
We can begin by responsibly exercising our right to vote on May 13. And not only that, we should vote into office those who have the capability to work and stand up to power. We should choose those whose integrity cannot be bought by drug, or any kind of money.
It is time to put order in this house.
@bethangsioco on Twitter Elizabeth Angsioco on Facebook