‘Rebolusyon sa inyong baga’

“There is no natural, spontaneous process to prevent destabilizing, inegalitarian forces from prevailing permanently.” – Thomas Piketty, The New Yorker

THIS administration and its minions have been bandying about lately the word “revolution” and its adjective form “revolutionary” like it is some kind of magic wand which will waive away all the horrific transgressions it is committing to the very people who brought them to power.

Please permit me a slight digression before I continue. I’d like to give a shout out to Fr. Brennan, SJ (apologies because for the life of me I can’t remember his first name) for teaching us basic Latin in high school. He taught us that if we learn Latin we could virtually be walking dictionaries.

Now back to the point I was making.

The Middle English word “revolution” is derived from the Latin revolutio which means a turnaround. Merriam Webster defines it as “a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities.”

Dictionary.com defines revolution as “an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.”

In sociology, revolution is “a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence.”

So, there. From the definitions alone, you can pretty much see how unnerving it is to hear people in power spouting such platitude. In the definitions, it is clear that the overthrowing variable is the population or the people governed or the ruled class.

What do this administration’s minions expect? Like, do they honestly believe Digong Dada will overthrow his own bloody rule? especially now that he has tasted intoxicating power, which possibly is only equaled by the dose of Fentanyl he has been taking?

This may come as a shock to you but what actually happened in Edsa 31 years ago was nowhere near a revolution. At best, it was a revolt of the middle class. Look where it has led the Filipino people too. It has dumbed down the collective understanding of what a revolution actually is.

It has been pointed out to me by a kuya-kumpare, no less, that a revolution isn’t necessarily a violent event. Methinks this kind of thinking is revisionist in nature — strongman Marcos’ “green revolution” comes to mind.

But if we revisited the true meaning of the word, how can an overthrow or replacement of an established system be anything peaceful or benign?

You have to realize that the system being replaced or overthrown has people (read: human beings) behind it. Do you honestly believe these people will just up and leave because they will be replaced by another paradigm?

Do you honestly believe that the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that breezed through the Bureau of Customs — thanks to the Davao Group — will end and will not happen again once this administration’s version of “revolutionary government” comes to power?

These people have been making a butt-load of money out of this sweet arrangement they have right now. Do you think they will just give this largesse for an altruistic goal of “uniting” the Filipino people?

Revolutions are always ugly, violent, and messy — always. The national democratic revolution that has been raging for the past four decades is a testament to that.

This administration threatening that it will establish a “revolutionary government” is like it says it respects human rights, due process, and rule of law. It is simply not true to what it is doing to our nation.

You cannot push a “threat” of a revolutionary government when most Filipinos have been living it for decades.

You see, revolutions are not threats. It is a lifestyle and the ruled class is living it.

The ruling class, to put it bluntly, is neither in the position nor have the moral ascendancy to call for a revolutionary government. The ruled class is the proper variable in the equation to complete a revolution, Einstein!

Jeez! Did all these “smart and brightest” flunk world history?

Narcos and corruption

“But it (war on drugs) can’t be won. It’ll never be won. At least not until people see it for what it is. Not until they know the truth.” – DEA agent Javier Peña, Narcos season 3, episode 10

AT the base of any successful illegal trafficking, be it in the flesh or drug trade is a cabal of corrupt elected politicians and bureaucrats. That is what agent Peña realized by the end of season 3. He had been fighting the government’s war on drugs which has long been bought and paid for by the drug cartels in Colombia.

In Narcos 3, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Colombian government are hot on the trail of the Cali drug cartel led by the Rodriguez-Orjuela brothers. These drug traffickers were different from Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel in that they operate with precision like a multinational corporation.

“Another deal. A compromise. A charade. A way for governments who don’t give a s**t about the war they’re supposed to be fighting, to go on pretending they’re winning it,” Peña’s soliloquy at the season ender rued.

In the series, Peña was getting more and more frustrated since he couldn’t seem to pin down the Cali cartel. As it turned out, the cartel “owned” the Office of the President of Colombia.

Ironically, Ernesto Samper won the presidency by campaigning against cocaine trafficking with campaign funds paid for by the Cali cartel. Although Peña and the US Embassy in Colombia had a taped conversation between Miguel Rodriguez Orjuela and Samper and the ledger which proved the existence of offshore shell companies, they were not able to pin down Samper even for charges of collusion to traffic drugs.

My take away lesson on this particular TV series is that no matter how hard and bloody you fight against illegal drugs if the system in government is vulnerable to corruption, the war on drugs will never be won.

A case in point is the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that breezed through the Bureau of Customs. One can easily be confused with the smokescreens of those who do not want the truth to be out. Guilty people can and have always hidden behind technicalities and legal loopholes. But the fact of the matter is, a butt load of illegal drugs was able to enter the country from the People’s Republic of China.

Like what Peña did, one need only to examine the supply chain and its subsequent flow of grease money to understand that the bigger scourge gripping a country is not the drugs itself but the rampant corruption, the wheeling, and dealing, the compromises, the charades, in the very halls of power.

Until this administration realizes that, we will continue to witness bodies of young and old, mostly poor, pile up.

The list

“There are three kinds of people in this world: 1) People who make lists, 2) people who don’t make lists, and 3) people who carve tiny Nativity scenes out of pecan hulls. I’m sorry, there isn’t really a third category; it’s just that a workable list needs a minimum of three items, I feel.” – Mary Roach, American author

AS promised, my column this week will be about the mystery of Digong Dada’s ever-changing list of narco-politicians or illegal drugs trade matrix or whatever it is now.

Don’t get me wrong. I, too, hoped the list would usher in an honest to goodness change. I thought the way the executive deals with politicians and technocrats who have been wheeling and dealing in the illegal drugs trade was about to change.

I bet everybody was as shocked as I was when Digong Dada started naming generals, judges, and politicians. When the President started bandying the list to the public eye last year, I thought, here’s a President who isn’t afraid to take on the cabals of corrupt bureaucrats.

However, when people started to inquire who helped the President draw up such list, he was suddenly withdrawn, secretive, and most often irked by the mere mention of such inquiry.

It didn’t help either that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Bureau of Investigation admitted that they were not, in any way, involved in the preparation of such list as reported by GMA news online on Aug. 30 last year.

Then PDEA Director General Isidro Lapeña (now Bureau of Customs top honcho), emphatically told a congressional hearing at the Lower House that they did not give any inputs which form part of the President’s list. NBI lawyer Henry Canapi, on the same congressional inquiry, sang to the same exact tune. Canapi said they did not submit any “subject personalities, politicians or otherwise.”

By the way, Lapeña doubled-down by saying he was unsure whether other agencies have been advising the President on the alleged drug lords in government, including the Philippine National Police.

Let’s fast-forward to the present. The question still remains. If PDEA, NBI, and the PNP didn’t help the President in drawing the list then who are these supposed intelligence consultants who helped draw up that list?

If the President’s list is to be believed, then how come the shady characters behind the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that passed through the Bureau of Customs weren’t on that list? Why is the President suddenly mum on the list?

Last week, he even advised his son to remain silent should the circus show, led by The Dick, summon him to explain the supposed role of the Davao Group in what could very well be the largest drug bust this administration’s war on drugs has ever carried out.

If the President’s list is to be believed, then why is he not helping the Senate committee investigate the butt-load of shabu that inexplicably passed through people who are highly motivated and passionate in ending the drug scourge that has gripped the nation?

As I have said before, anybody can draw up a list. Hell, even our emotionally detached, spectacularly inefficient, and grossly ineffective barangay chair drew up such a list. The bigots at our local church even contributed to the list. The list, I was told, is based on “common knowledge” which I take as a euphemism for grapevine or chismis.

I have a friend who is a member of a local intelligence unit. For obvious reasons, I will not name him. As he told me, he’d have to kill me if he gets “burned.” This friend showed me their list as well.

It is a list of local drug personalities who are under surveillance. It could have been a veritable kill list, he added. But in the wake of the incorrigible murder of 17-year old Kian Loyd delos Santos, he said they have to extend the time frames of their surveillance on these individuals. He said they wanted to be sure that when not if, they do “neutralize” these drug personalities they have more than sufficient evidence to do so. He added they will not base their decision on a Facebook post like what the Caloocan police did.

The list holds some familiar names. It has former city councilors, former mayors, and former house representatives in it. Curiously, the list even has a columnist in it, a very vocal supporter of his Excellency. My friend said they have been on to him for quite some time now.

Whether my friend’s list or that of the President are credible will remain questionable at best for as long as the people behind the drawing of such lists remain shady and unnamed. For as long as the process behind the drawing of those lists remains questionable, these will remain as such.

I repeat anybody can draw up a list. If I were to draw up such a list, I would list first all the people who have wronged me or pose a threat to taking away my power to draw up a list.

Just consider the quote above: Any workable list needs a minimum of three items. It doesn’t need due process, supporting evidence, or any modicum of rule of law. These three items, by the way, is a workable list. A list of things which we direly need in government right now.

Resist state terrorism

“No one can terrorize a nation unless we are all his accomplices.” – Edward R. Murrow

I REFUSE to aid and abet this administration’s state terrorism. I have resisted the state-sponsored terrorism of past presidents of this Republic and I am not about to change that on account of the misleading chatter on social media platforms.

Yes, just as what past populist despots have done, Digong Dada has owned the new platforms of expression — thanks to enterprising online people.

State terrorism has been defined as “a form of terrorism which sometimes occurs when governments implement neoliberal policies lacking widespread support.” I dare say it’s lacking widespread support because far more Filipinos are not online. This administration’s noise on social media platforms is fake. We have uncovered them time and again since Day 1 of this administration.

The Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights, more popularly — or in this administration’s perspective infamously — known as Karapatan, aptly puts in its second issue of its monitor of Duterte’s first year in office.

“Duterte has become a public relations expert – spitting out arguments that drug users are less than human, strutting with public displays of apathy regarding national and international pressures, manipulating old verbal assault and threats against progressive organizations and human rights advocates who raise concern over the rights issues in the country.”

This administration can yarn every possible spin-off it could muster online but the fact remains that only 14 of every 35 Filipinos are wired online. This seemingly overwhelming “support” rhetoric on social media does not include the marginalized sectors, the sectors that have undoubtedly catapulted Digong Dada to the presidency.

I do not blame them. It is tempting, though. But I will not. These people have every right to hope for a better Philippines when Digong Dada promised it to them albeit in a brusque and curt manner. They have been manipulated and f***ed up (pardon my French) by the ruling system for so long that when Digong Dada came about, they were all too willing to pledge their allegiance to the seemingly no-nonsense talking politics.

However, his lies started unraveling from the very first day of his presidency. I don’t have to enumerate it here since it would take up most of the space for this column. I do call on readers to witness the state’s affairs with more critical lenses. Unrequited suggestion: Read up on this administration besides Facebook posts, Instagram memes and Twitter feeds.

The last thing you’d want is to be sucked into this administration’s hate rhetoric. And this hate rhetoric worsened with every engagement the president had since Day 1.

Yesterday, Digong Dada gave his second State of the Nation Address. I couldn’t wait for it since our Constitution specifically stipulates this to be done starting at 1 pm and I have to submit this column by 8 am yesterday, at the latest.

I have a soft spot for satires, as you may have noticed in my past columns. That’s why I was glad when I read Professional Heckler’s parody of Digong Dada’s Sona because to be honest about it, I did not expect the President to say something new. It would have been on his war on drugs, f**k human rights defenders, f**k the European Union, etc ad nauseum. It would have been like a “folk” song — folk this and folk that.

As I have mentioned in my past columns, satire is an effective tool in exposing the untruths issue by issue and politico by politico. However, the writer should focus their satirical lens to particular policies or individuals for this to be effective because if you satirize the whole political structure, then it will give the impression that all policies are the same. This would enforce further the status quo. In this case, the state terrorist wins.

A sample of Professional Heckler’s satirical take on the President’s Sona yesterday: “Nang ako ay maging pangulo, nangako akong magbibigay ng trabaho sa ating mga kababayan. Hindi naman sa pagmamayabang, tinupad ko ang pangakong ’yan. Ngayong hapon, kasama natin dito sa Batasan ang tatlo sa pinakamasisipag kong appointees. Hindi lang sila sa office nagtatrabaho kundi pati sa mga rally laban kay Robredo. Palakpakan po natin sina Mocha Uson, Kat de Castro at Arnell Ignacio.” (Applause.)

Digong Dada’s latest verbal stunt was when he said he is willing to go to war against the communist insurgency. Adding that he has the might of the Armed Forces behind him and the Maoists only have the indigenes on their side. He said he is willing to fight this war up to the last standing communist.

Wait. How many days, nay months, did it take him to quell a singular clan in Marawi City again? How is this administration addressing the end of contractualization? What is the position of this administration on the West Philippine Sea?

More importantly, when will he really jet ski and plant a flag on Scarborough Shoal?