Siftings 12-12-09
The plot thickens
There must be more to this Ampatuan business than meets the normal eye: the high profile arrests of leaders of the clan, all government functionaries, the caches of arms dug out on Ampatuan grounds; the Martial Law Declaration in Maguindanao; the overt checking in of Ampatuan kin in Metro Manila hotels; the recent unearthing of voters’ IDs in Ampatuan territory. More and more, the plot thickens, like a flooded river swollen with mud and up-rooted trees and human debris, threatening to overrun the banks of Decency and simple Morality and overwhelm our Nation in a deluge of Chaos and Evil Supreme!
Consider this scenario: 57 innocent, non-combative people, including bystanders, murdered in broad daylight, with elements of CAFGUS and a private army as murderers, led by the Mayor of the territory himself, from all accounts; the lead perpetrator arrested on a non-bailable charge of multiple murder. And before more arrests can be made following the unearthing of arms, ammunitions, and now, voters’ IDs in the very seats of local government power, the additional comparably more honorable charge of rebellion for 21 more or less Ampatuans. Rebellion? There are no evidences of rebellion to support this charge: no ideological papers or documents to support this charge, no previous acts of treason against central government. But why rebellion?
Because the erstwhile political ally of GMA must be kept safe, so as not to spill the beans on election-related machinations that made her win in the 2004 elections. A secret deal maybe? Just mull this over as a possible scenario: Charged with rebellion, which is bailable, the Ampatuans get a maximum of 6 years in prison with possible amnesty and could even escape out of the country even while on bail; if charged with murder which is non-bailable, they could get life imprisonment and have to pay damages to the 57 victims’ families. If found guilty and thus penalized, 57 victims comes down to a lot of money. The Ampatuans’ combined wealth (perhaps mostly ill-gotten) which runs to billions, could perhaps cover indemnity payments. But they are patently greedy, and would be loathe to pay out that much. No, they would not want to lose their 28 mansions scattered in several places in Mindanao and even in Metro Manila!
So, where does GMA come in? In due time, and when she gets elected to the House of Representatives, she and her allies there will work for Charter Change, to put in place a unicameral House of Parliament, which would be filled with her cohorts whom she would inveigle by gifts of money to make her Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, she will rule this country again, with an iron hand to allow her to get even with her enemies and detractors, the opposition, and the ordinary citizen who is really sick unto death of her chicanery, greed and machinations.
Golly gee, indeed.
Without batting an eyelash, I can even ask: Are we so sure she is not the mastermind in the Massacre, something so unspeakably bestial that only a sick mind ensconced behind an advanced case of megalomania can be capable of. Megalomania is the disease of people with access to great power, and surfaces when the possessor of such power is about to lose it. And the people supposedly stricken with this illness are: of low physical structure, large brain capacity, fundamentally hypocritical in believing themselves pious and godly. Mostly, they are lacking in that generosity of spirit we call Heart, or Compassion. Or Love.
Remember Napoleon Bonaparte? A Corsican peasant of short structure but big head, he was brainy, and had the enormous ambition and political skills to amass an army and invade other European nations in a rapacious rage to unite them under French domination. There’s Adolf Hitler, another shorty at 5’ feet or less, who must have felt very small and dwarfed by his hulking and blond, blue-eyed German compatriots (he was an Austrian-Jew with black hair and brown eyes), and a mere house painter. But he felt consuming hatred for his house-painter father, which energized his talents in public speaking to advance his political and military skills at maneuvering, mesmerizing the whole German nation into declaring war on his neighbors in a lunatic scheme to rid the world of the Jews and cleanse the “Aryan Race” of blond, blue-eyed people to which he believed he belonged, in the greatest most vicious and unforgivable genocide History and Humanity have ever known.
Who else? Ferdie Macoy was not tall and married a tall beauty queen to make up for it. He declared Martial Law in 1972 to hold on to power and get rid of his enemies. And he succeeded, even to the extent of paving the way for Ninoy Aquino to be assassinated and to eventually acquire the martyrdom that this nation has accorded him.
And now, GMA, at 4’8” or 4’10” in height is dwarfish, with the requisite large brain capacity which bespeaks a certain smartness. Like Jose Rizal’s smartness and quickness. But what a difference. If one looks at her physiognomy, at her distracting mole, her buck teeth, her ever-fattening short legs and general shortness – one is tempted to conclude that all this shortness must have a psychological bearing on all her actions, personal and most of all, political.
Because from the looks of it, GMA is driven, absolutely driven to get up there, to be taller, higher than everybody else! And to remain there, at the top, with no one else to be higher than her, has become the modus operandi of her daily life of thinking and doing!
It is her height, her shortness, that has driven her to be on top of and above everyone else. To make up for her height, she snared a tall man. Her children are normal in height. But alas! her only daughter is lame in one leg (some say, she has a clubfoot), and to add to that misfortune, is as plain, or even plainer than her short mother.
Alas, alas, the irony of life.
So, for that, she has to acquire more things material and political to make her feel superior to everyone else, and to retain her place at the top of this nation. And perhaps of this would, who knows?
And so the grasp for wealth, carried out through the corruption of government functionaries, the linkages with local powerful clans and dynasties to insure her continued rule, through gold, goons and guns.
She is an outstanding study of a phenomenal case of the compulsion to power and dominance. She lives only for that. The brittleness of her face when she appears on TV reveals her lack of basic pity or compassion for the people who had made the mistake of electing her to the presidency.
At long last, I have said my piece.
Let me end this long sigh of repressed feelings with another question, one I have asked myself over and over:
How long can we as a nation put up with this never-before witnessed, never-before experienced, never-before anticipated mis-rule or non-rule by this most unpopular, most hated president of this country? And a woman at that! For shame, GMA. You are the blight on the Tree of Womanhood!
