Siftings
Culture of Impunity + Immunity = Gotterdammerung?
The scenario is so oft repeated that by now, nobody is surprised. Not us Filipinos, anyway. The Supreme Court Justices voted to allow a sifting president of the Republic to appoint its Chief within the 2-month period ban before elections. A downright violation of the Constitution? Aside from the violation, it is also a clear indication that the taint of corruption has surely spread upward into the highest echelon of the Judiciary. All these sitting Justices were appointees of the sitting president. For them to allow her to appoint their Chief at a time and in a manner prohibited by the Fundamental Law of the Land is untenable. Yet the reactions have been slow and have not totally gotten underway, except for that protest by law students at the UP. What about the rest of the nation? No rallies of indignation or protests or condemnations? Pagod na nga tayo.
But why are we allowing the chief arbiters of impartial justice, who, despite being human, are tasked to safeguard and keep inviolate, the fundamental justice in the land, get away with this murder of our constitution?
Why were media clips of the Supreme Court Justices juxtaposed with shots of the military shown in parade uniform, marching in perfect unison and admirable formation, passing before the number one official of the land and saluting her? The cameras, whether intentionally or not, are sending an unmistakable subliminal message which has been raising hackles down my spine in memory of just such similar scenes: troops passing in perfect review and saluting a head of state with the silent subliminal still-to-be articulated message: military might in the service of one person, one power. And when this image is juxtaposed with that of black-robed personages voting to allow that one person the power to break a law by breaking the law themselves, the effect is chilling.
Are we about to witness another Martial Rule? The scenario for such is now in place: a newly-appointed Chief of the Army, perceived to be a staunch defender and ally of the sitting president; appointees in the Cabinet to replace those who resigned to run for public office. And to top it all, a Chief Justice just before the May 10 elections who will be empowered to decide whom to place in the presidency should a failure of elections be declared by a COMELEC perceived as biased in the incumbent president’s favor.
And look. Appointees appointed by the sitting president all down the line, given a taste of Bribe Heaven, rendering the Judiciary Branch now suspiciously incapable of independent judgment. The Legislative branch reduced to sycophants as incumbent congressmen who won by having been funded/ supported of funds by the present administration are perceived to be even more beholden to the sitting president by virtue of gifts of cash in paper bags and other presumably covert ways, will be predictably favorable to the outcome of a failure of elections which will prolong the “rule” of the sitting president because then they could retain their own seats in the House of Representatives. Chilling prospects.
Isn’t that what happened back in the 1970’s after Marcos declared Martial Law? And yet, what are we as a people doing? Or not doing?
Why aren’t we going out into the streets in the millions to protest, clamor, rally,make fiery speeches as we did in those glorious protest days? Have we become so used to these Machiavellian tactics so frequently, almost routinely, done to our nation with such in-your-face indifference to what is legal, rightful, proper, decent, that we have, in turn become indifferent to what is lawful, rightful, proper, and decent; so that we have become outrageously indifferent and blase and uncaring; so that we have, in short, become scandalous accomplices of scalawags and perpetrators of the wrongs being inflicted on our nation’s body politic, turning a collective blind eye on the insidious signs and signals of a master plan. What plan? Possibly to impose Martial Law in the aftermath of an elections which can fail due to possible technical breakdown in the automated elections? Are we bracing for a second Martial Law? In my lifetime, a 2nd Martial Law? God forbid.
Let’s do a rewind of past events to check for subliminal clues, because the scenario is too temptingly alluring for people to remain clueless.
Or am I just being too paranoid, putting too much into superficially circumstantial evidences, giving the sitting president too much credit for purely coincidental maneuverings which smack of Machiavellian cleverness?
But from where I’m sitting, I can see where she is heading: endless rule of this poor island republic whose majority masa population has remained ignorant and malleable and vulnerable to political maneuvering from Day 1 of the nation’s birth. As for the sitting president, from Day 1 of her rise to power, she knew she could be run out of Malacañang in her turn if she did not play her cards right. And so, she started her string of clever appointments, in the Military, in the Judiciary and Executive branches. But she did not reckon that some of those appointees would see through her and turn around to resign and denounce her, like the Hyatt 10. Once out of office, these people tried to show that they were more loyal to the nation than to her. But look where such loyalty got them: powerless, inutile, without support for what amounts to baseless allegations unless one can count occasional jibes in the media as a strike against her.
Now I ask: why have we become inutile, rendered clueless as to how to right the wrongs being inflicted on us as a people, as a nation?
Have we become the unwritten instruments of our own powerlessness, due to the constant violations of: our Sense and Moral Justice and Righteousness; our Faith in Integrity and Human Dignity; our Scorn of Dishonesty and Hypocrisy; and our collective Distrust of and Disgust with Greed and Corruption and Theft in the highest offices of the present Administration?
What have we become? Alas, it seems to me we become the complaisant witnesses and accomplices in this Culture of Impunity that seems to have permeated the national fiber of our lives even before the Maguindanao Massacre that surely sent shock waves to become immune to the strings of moral conscience, to the proddings of idealism and the courage to fight, really fight for a cause? We have, I think become immune, to the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of our national life, one misfortune being that we placed in power the wrong person to lead us 9 years ago in the so-called second bloodless revolution in our history.
Now we can only wait – with the proverbial bated breath and fervent prayers that the May 10 elections will show us a way out of this culture of impunity that has made our nation seemingly immune to the calls of Unity, Justice, Progress, Prosperity. If not, we can expect Gotterdammerung. The Twilight of the Gods, where everything Good and Noble and Beautiful will come crashing down on us, to drown us in the debris of Despair and Desolation.
