VOLUME 34 ISSUE NO 1 THE MANILA COLLEGIAN
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features 07
Halting Pandora s Box: PH under the Great Divide and Evil Powers
BY GINO AND MARIANNE DE JESUS
Held on its throat by the man who spat pipe dreams to those he vowed to serve and protect, the Philippine atmosphere gets bleaker with every passing moment. From enacting anti-poor policies, to the debacle of a pandemic response, the Filipino heart aches fiercely for a luminary of a leader to shed light on our reality. The day of reckoning gets closer by the hour and soon we will cast our choices which will determine the course of our lives in the coming years. Alas, our choices have come forth! The arena is filled with their faces and voices, each clamoring assurance of a better world. Then, an identical to the Pandora’s box appeared at the center, a heavy and ornately carved box begging to be pried open. We are in need of a unified resistance to keep us from setting a brewing catastrophe free. Here, the future of our nation lies. MAD Alliance and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse In the arena, a banner has risen and drawn on it are the figures of an eagle and a tiger side by side. Coiled on the pole of this banner are the hands of two scions of two corrupt and fascist leaders –– Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., and Sara Duterte-Carpio, along with their backer Gloria Macapagal Arroyo –– and altogether they form the Marcos, Arroyo, and Duterte or the ‘MAD’ alliance. Fruits never fall far from their trees. The trees in question are blatantly deceptive, inarguably wicked, machines hungry for power, and most of all bona fide to be corrupt in nature. From the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. who’ve ordered the killings and torture of his critics and ordinary Filipinos while at the same time robbing billions from the coffers of the Filipinos for 20 years then. Now, another tyrant has risen to power, Rodrigo Duterte who greatly resembles the former, who has and is si-
ART BY JAYLORD ABUCOT
lencing his critics, killing thousands in his bloody drug war, while keeping a blind eye on the stolen billions in the middle of a pandemic. The roots of these seedlings are strengthened by regimes which have made Filipinos suffer, and thus, these two are tyrants and corrupt leaders in the making. And now, they have put an alliance which only has a goal to be self-serving and apathetic of the actual needs of the ordinary Filipinos. Both continue to deny or refuse to acknowledge their father’s atrocities to the Filipinos only makes them complicit in their crimes. This only further reflects the kind of leadership they will emulate. The four political parties –– Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), Hugpo ng Pagbabago (HNP), Lakas-CMD (Christian Muslim Democrats), and Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) –– have come in support of the MAD alliance, is the cherry on top, and ultimately creating the vilest and most corrupt unification of parties in the course of Philippine history. These parties have produced leaders charged with plunder and are certified corrupt with the likes of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Jinggoy Estrada. Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse holding Pandora’s Box, they have come to ascertain the catastrophe of our country. And when Pandora’s Box was opened, a legion of evil and suffering sprang out into the world. Unboxing Pandora’s Box Terror and corruption runs in the blood of their roots, so shall they be if they were to be elected. A series of fiasco shall reign on the Philippines as darkness will pervade and no one shall escape but their cronies.
The already bleak world the country was put under will likely get worse as the same families who’ve ransacked the country will get into power. Sara Duterte, once in power, will protect her father, literally, from the International Criminal Court once her father’s regime is over. They will write the current regime clean of all the atrocities they have committed. Like giant fingers of a monster lacing at the neck of justice itself, while justice gasps for air and the fingers press hard enough to crack the neck. Ensuring that justice will never be served for those who have been waiting long enough for Rodrigo Duterte to step out of power. While Ferdinand Marcos Jr., once in power, will try to revise history and in a wave of his hand, all their sins will dissipate in an instant. And he’s not even in power yet historical revisionism is already taking place. From his fake degrees, fake diploma, fake wins, and fake achievements. All done just to polish the rotten Marcos name. A jobless man who has only risen when the election campaign has begun. A thick-faced monster who pretends to represent Ilocos Norte only to be dis-
covered he doesn’t even speak Ilocano. He is a walking mass of lies. With disinformation at their disposal, they shall remain ever sugar-coated in beautiful and grand things. But deep inside they are just another monster ready to take as much power as they can while cleaning their fathers’ mess. One thing is for sure, they do not want to serve the people, they have come for power and to pillage what is left. The difference between Pandora’s Box and the MAD alliance is that this time we know exactly what lies beneath them. Unboxing Pandora’s Box Albeit their families’ self-interests, it is undoubtedly that the MAD alliance has been constant in building rapport to clinch the highest seat in the following years yet another story unfolds from the other side of the spectrum. The Left has been constantly divided because of conflict in ideological differences. Despite the common goal to eliminate the thick-faced monsters in power, the bred-in-the-bone feud runs until today that hampers them to unite. It is very much evident in the elitist rhetoric on the digital surface how one ignores the plea of the ordinary people and the non-negotiables of the other. The liberals’ mocking of the ordinary makes them become more out of touch to the most important frontliner in clinching the power. Until today, the alliance of evils still led the polls and this would only continue to soar if there wouldn’t be solid opposition. In addition, its vague stance on the anti-counterinsurgency campaign headed by National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) makes the national democrats vulnerable. The implementation of the task force only gave green light to the men in uniform to redtag and kill human
rights defenders. In essence, it does not eradicate the Reds since it fails to address the decade-long problems in agrarian reform and inhumane living conditions. Furthermore, the constant vilification and blaming to the national democrats on why Duterte sat in power solely because of trying to have a dialogue to uphold peaceful negotiations only aggravated the current divide. The analysis is not only shallow, but also ignores the role of other parties in the making of the bloody Duterte regime. Halting the Unboxing The Philippines has had enough for the past five years of pure agony under President Rodrigo Duterte’s term. It is in these darkest moments where the united opposition is needed the most. Both the corrupts and tyrants will remain scott-free for another decade if fate follows their playbook. There’s still a long ride, at least enough time to build rapport, before the country witnesses another unboxing of Pandora’s box. The decades-long conflict is still possible to be set aside for a tactical alliance to prevent a bloodier Duterte-Marcos regime. In fact, this happened during the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, where all people from walks of life united to form a human barricade as a symbol of resistance. In a country plagued with tyranny and corruption, the hopes are getting dimmer to see a better tomorrow, yet if these leaders would prioritize the needs of the people despite the differences, it is still possible to defeat the MAD alliance through constantly organizing and mobilizing. While some remain blind from the black propaganda of the two scions, people should never antagonize since they became the prey of historical distortion and a skewed colonial educational system that favors the evils to remain in power. The future of our nation heavily depends on how the Left and the people can maximize the remaining time. After all, we are all trying to halt the unboxing to prevent the brewing dictatorship
MAGNA EST VERITAS ET PREVAELEBIT
