The Arroyo administration warns against “unconstitutional” means of addressing the country’s problems. But this administration’s repressive acts and issuances have been adjudged as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Arroyo government and its allies say that the Filipino people are tired of people power. Does this mean that the Filipino people are tired of condemning massive electoral fraud, putting a stop to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, resisting repression, fighting corruption, struggling against hunger and poverty? Does this mean that the Filipino people had become apathetic? Does this mean that the Filipino people are tolerating the lies, the cheating, the blatant bribery, the intimidation and the killings? Does this mean that the Filipino people are wont to tolerate impunity and a morally-bankrupt government? If that is so, then we are witnessing the death of democracy.
But such wishful thinking of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration goes against the tide of history. Otherwise humankind would have been stuck in the period of barbarism or slavery. The struggles of humankind have always been a struggle for greater freedom, democracy, equality and prosperity.
The biggest gain of the Filipino people in ousting the Marcos dictatorship and the Estrada administration is not only that we were able to get rid of repressive and corrupt administrations. It is the realization that the Filipino people can, through collective action, initiate change. And the people’s collective action is the highest form of democratic expression and people’s participation in governance. Suppressing it does not silence the people and make them compliant; on the contrary, repression radicalizes the people. (Bulatlat.com)
