07/18/2011
Col. Generoso Mariano, deputy
commander of the Naval Reserve Command, declared that the Aquino
government “has no capability to save us from hunger and death.” In that
Facebook video dated July 3 he argued, “We soldiers also feel the
impact of (the) unrelenting rise in prices of commodities, medicines and
food… If this government has no intention or is not doing anything to
save the life of the majority, it is the right of every Filipino,
including soldiers, to replace the government. I repeat, replace the
government.” He then exhorted everyone to “once and for all build a
nation based on truth for without it there can be no justice, and
without justice… no peace and without peace… no development.” The video,
by the way, was posted by a group called “Oust Noynoy Movement!”
While
Colonel Mariano’s plaints are obvious, his timing leaves some
questions: Why only now? Why not during Gloria Arroyo’s time which was
as bad? And why replace only the government when the whole system is at
fault?
Vice Adm. Alexander Pama said the colonel is currently
under investigation and confined to headquarters. Pama must have some
inkling of Mariano’s reasons as I am told he, too, was supposed to have
joined Gen. Danilo Lim’s military protest in 2006.
Most of you may
know that I have supported such military actions in the past — from the
Bagong Katipunero’s (or the Magdalo’s) to Gen. Danny Lim’s — because I
know of RP’s systemic socio-economic injustice brought about by
oligarchic exploitation as well as neocolonial enslavement, which have
exacerbated poverty and decay with no resolution at hand.
These
ills that demand real solutions are not being addressed at all with the
seriousness required, even a year after the present administration has
stepped in. Only palliatives and PR stunts in the form of Conditional
Cash Transfers or Public-Private Partnerships are the order of the day
while Filipinos continue to be on “Debt Row,” with their basic
necessities progressively priced beyond reach — and this, as government
is mired in squabbles and ineptitude, apparently oblivious to the
erosion of its moral claims by its own KKKs.
Our military friends
had already expected Colonel Mariano’s move two weeks before it came
out. I was also informed that Mariano, a reserve officer (not a PMAyer),
had joined the 1989 RAM (Reform the Armed Forces Movement) coup attempt
but has since been uninvolved. When his Marine colleagues such as
General Miranda and Colonels De Leon and Segumalian protested in 2006,
for instance, he was not among those who were hauled off to detention.
Some
speculate that, with his retirement coming up a week after his video
came out, among Mariano’s other motives was possibly a missed chance to
make the rank of general. True or not, such timing certainly can’t
compare with the incontrovertible sacrifices of the young Bagong
Katipunero officers who staked their careers or Gen. Danny Lim who was
in line for promotion when he took action.
Having considered all
the information, I can say that Colonel Mariano’s act still helps the
cause of change by calling attention to the crisis in Philippine society
and its political-economic morass. One major shortcoming of Mariano’s
declaration, though, is his limiting the blame to the present government
— a half-truth that has opened him to be rightly or wrongly interpreted
as part of the ploy of the (still) “worst enemy of the Filipino people
today,” who has all the reason to create distractions and
destabilizations to deflect from the growing crisis she faces. And this
is what other factions of the military are now saying about him.
From
my perspective — coming from one who’s rabidly against both the present
government and Gloria Arroyo’s forces — Colonel Mariano could have been
more credible if he had made his analysis comprehensive enough to cover
the ills of the entire system, calling for the “ouster of all.”
The
present ruling system and the people behind it — or the ruling class,
which includes the financial, economic, military, political, and “civil
society” elite — thrive on the betrayal of the sovereignty of the
people. They subvert the nation’s sovereignty and economic aspirations
by collaborating with foreign interests to perpetuate debt-dependence;
the institutionalization of alternating corrupt regimes through coups
disguised as “People Power” and rigged elections (Hocus-PCOS); the
systematic dismantling of the State through liberalization and
privatization; and the consequent elimination of “public welfare,”
“public service,” and “national interest,” in favor of “profit” and
“corporate welfare.” Such outcomes are what Mariano described in
common-tao terms as the “hunger and death,” which ordinary soldiers also
feel.
But shouldn’t he stop to think: Who are behind the present
government he despises? Weren’t the oligarchs, new and old, “civil
society” and its NGOs, the clergy, as well as the US and Britain, along
with their respective chambers of commerce, behind Arroyo for as long as
they were able to exact their pound of flesh from us? And aren’t they
now behind the present dispensation and massively profiting from us as
well?
The Colonel Marianos, the Bagong Katipuneros and Para sa
Bayan soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and all the
impoverished people of this nation should see through the ruling elite’s
games, particularly the Noynoy vs Gloria moro-moro. In the spirit of
Bonifacio’s Revolution, let’s all unite and oust them all — and make
their heads roll!
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5
to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7
p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay
at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Franchising: Hope for
Economic Recovery”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and
http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110718com5.html
