Consumers Domain
Murder Funds
"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."
--Montesquieu
In a cabinet meeting last week as reported in the news, Gloria Arroyo declared, "The fight against the Left remains the glue that binds." As she made the statement an extra P1 billion was added into the war chest as her government prepares for a renewed effort to crush the communist insurgency. From this statement you can already see the mindset of this tyrannical ruler who has shown no qualms in spending the government's resources to silence opposition and political dissent.
Now what is so wrong about Arroyo's statement? The declaration was not only a fight against the armed communist insurgency but a fight against the "Left" as a whole. This is not a simple error in the use of words for Arroyo as a politician knows the distinction between armed rebels and the "Left".
This is indirectly sanctioning the continuous murder of political dissenters, community organizers, labor leaders, NGO workers and other activists who are vocal critics of this Gloria Arroyo. This is equivalent to allotting "murder funds" to pursue the policy of this fake administration to threaten and silence the opposition particularly the left.
Now this column would like to share the press statement of the Freedom from Debt Coalition on this same topic aptly entitled "If you can't beat them, kill them." Please read below.
"This is the concrete message echoed by Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she decided to allocate an additional P1 billion to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to revitalize its aim to crush the 37-year-old communist insurgency. However, Mrs. Arroyo's declaration of war is a sure recipe for more state-sanctioned violence and carnage against legitimate political dissent using peoples' money.
It is also a confirmation of the danger of a beleaguered administration operating under a reenacted budget. Due to the failure of Congress, and much to the delight of the executive branch, to enact a budget for this year, Mrs. Arroyo virtually became a more powerful incumbent having discretionary authority in the allocation of public funds. This time, her regime is not only using peoples' money to politically survive but to commit murder in a colossal scale.
Although disguised as an all-out military offensive out to smash the "communist threat" under the flagship of Oplan Bantay Laya, Mrs. Arroyo is also declaring an all-out war on the legal political opposition by making no distinctions whatsoever between armed rebels and open political dissenters. Mrs. Arroyo's declaration that "the fight against the left remains the glue that binds" is a clear endorsement for the massacre of more political activists and personalities just by simply branding them as leftists.
In the span of three years, several hundred activists and legal leftists were tortured and killed in a systematic effort to squash the last and most effective bastion of political opposition--the legal progressive movement. This kind of initiative is but commonsensical of a government that cannot wash away its issue of legitimacy. This embattled regime is so desperate to survive that it will use everything at its disposal particularly public funds to confirm its right to rule.
This is happening in a juncture where resource allocations to vital social services are at its lowest. Under the Arroyo regime, the education's share in the fiscal pie went down by 27.9% while spending on health is 0.27% of our GDP. Our people are dying of communicable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis--diseases that are highly preventable and treatable. And yet, Mrs. Arroyo has the nerve to buy attack helicopters and aircraft to smash an insurgency that is precisely rooted and fanned by an atmosphere of lack of needed social services and social justice. Truly, Mrs. Arroyo's callousness is without comparison.
Without a doubt, the funds that will be allocated to Oplan Bantay Laya are nothing but annihilation funds out to exterminate all citizens humbly exercising their right in exposing and opposing the illegitimacy of the Arroyo regime. However, the first victims of this mad endeavor will not be armed rebels but the student activists, priests, journalists, NGO workers and sectoral leaders who struggle with the poor in aspiring for a better life.
We remind this pretend government that no amount of militarism will smother an insurgency motivated by poverty and powerlessness. Historically, all military campaigns based on this warmongering assumption wasted not only scarce public resources but thousands of innocent lives as well. The only paramount way of addressing this issue is by confronting the lack of social justice and economic well-being dominant in our society. Unfortunately, the bogus Arroyo regime has other priorities in mind.
Now more than ever, the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) is challenging the earnestness of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. If Mrs. Arroyo is truly sincere in solving the insurgency problem and in paving way for genuine national development and unity, then the last best thing she can do is for her to surrender power and abandon all attempts in pretending to be president."
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