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Friday, March 29, 2024

All choked up

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It seems odd at first blush, but is actually apt. On the 29th anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution, the highway after which the occasion was named caused a stir again, and for all the wrong reasons.

Thursday was a holiday for students, but not for workers who had to suffer oppressive traffic as a section of Edsa was blocked for commemoration activities.

What resulted was instead anything but fond remembrance of the lofty ideals that the memory of a peaceful revolution was supposed to evoke. 

This was the literal, physical mess.

The bigger mess is this. February 25 has always been milked by politicians and supposed do-gooders of all stripes such that we now wonder where all the years had gone — and why we had wasted them.

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The crisis that the Palace is now facing easily comes to mind. President Benigno Aquino III, son of the main beneficiary of the Edsa revolt, and who is himself a beneficiary of the sympathetic surge following his mother’s death, is dealing with what is the most trying period of his leadership.

The death of 44 policemen sent to the “territory” of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to arrest two terrorists hiding there for years has highlighted a failure in leadership in the top places in our government. While the saga continues to unfold, and while everybody tries to evade responsibility for the deaths of the men, what the public knows at this point is enough to make us shake our heads in disgust.

In last Monday’s Senate hearing on the Mamasapano tragedy, we learned as much: that the President had known about what was going on in the morning of January 25 — contrary to what security officials have said under oath. They can split hairs and insist that there was deliberate misinformation, that the President was fed lies, but that does not alter some basic wrong calls.

From their text exchanges, it was clear that Mr. Aquino authorized and gave instructions to then-Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima, ordered suspended by the Office of the Ombudsman as early as December 2014.  How then do the President’s words stand now when he earlier said he merely sought the advice of Purisima, who was knowledgeable about the “intelligence package”?

What was the President thinking, blatantly defying the suspension order and violating the command chain, disrespecting the process and the legitimate members of his team, and most of all lying about the extent of his involvement in the operation?

This is compounded by his deplorable conduct towards the grieving families of the policemen and his utter inability to act as a “father” like he claims. Mr. Aquino is the same man who promised genuine change, and until now he has us longing for it.

This is our Edsa now. A traffic jungle, a place of chaos, and a reflection of squandered potential.

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