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Why the Left fails to get it right
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star 2011-01-18
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Our Leftists will strike at every opportunity to rabble rouse against the President Noynoy Aquino III (P-Noy) administration. At the start of the year, they immediately mounted a demonstration using the new toll fare hikes as their excuse. It mattered not to them that this was an inherited problem and that the judicial process determined the right of the toll road operators to recoup their investments.
This week, the Left is mounting a series of activities that will culminate in their January 22 commemoration of the Mendiola Massacre. The Left had desperately tried to tag our late President Cory C. Aquino as a human rights violator because of that Mendiola incident which is largely believed to have been planned and instigated by the Left in order to undermine her administration. At that time, the Left was suffering from massive defections. Many of their comrades wanted to return already to the mainstream of Philippine society.
The democratic space that President Cory had restored convinced many of the rebels fighting in the hills that the oppression and repression that drove them to the revolutionary path had been removed. They missed their families and wanted to get back to their normal lives. The diehards of the Leftist movement resorted to killing their comrades who have lost interest as well as heart and wanted to abandon their revolutionary struggle. The Mendiola Massacre is better appreciated when seen within the context of the times.
The Left never succeeded in eroding the Cory image with the Mendiola incident. Filipinos felt that instigating a massacre for agitprop was something the Left was totally capable of undertaking. Right thinking Filipinos could not see anything in the Cory persona that would suggest an inclination to order the shooting of protesting farmers. If they failed to tag President Cory C. Aquino as a human rights violator - it is highly unlikely that they can now associate that tag with P-Noy.
One of the many human interest stories during the 1986 People Power Revolution, which ousted Dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos and restored democracy, was about a diehard Leftist who was seen crying copious tears at the sidewalk of EDSA. The diehard Leftist was not shedding tears of joy but of frustration, disappointment and resentment over the fact that their movement failed to wrest control of the government despite their sacrifices during the dark period of Marcos martial rule.
When we scan the Philippine political landscape, the poverty and the misery index would tend to suggest that the country is ripe for revolution. True enough, we have been hearing of analysis after analysis since the 1970s which point to a Philippine social explosion. That has not happened because Filipinos know better than to try the revolutionary route to salvation. That has also not happened because the promoters of the socialist revolution are not only doubted by many Filipinos but are also feared. It is human nature not to trust anyone who is feared.
If you read the political analysis of the Left, you would tend to agree with many of the points that they’ve raised on what is wrong in our country. It is in accepting them as our saviors where a stiff resistance is encountered. These days, you will note that the Left has practically abandoned their socialist rhetoric of the 1970s and the 1980s. How can they still mouth that when China and Russia — the then biggest promoters of Communism — have already embraced Capitalist practices and are profiting handsomely for doing so?
Handicapped by their heavy political baggage, the Left has resorted to presenting new faces — their front organizations. They have a front organization for just about every sector — labor, migrant workers, women, jeepney drivers, students, farmers and so forth. Former Defense Minister Juan Ponce-Enrile once said: “If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like duck, then it must be a duck.” Many Filipinos saw through the Leftist fronts and categorized them as the usual suspects.
Caught in this deception of the Left are many nationalists and patriots who have swallowed the Leftist line. Many of them are from the youth sector and they do not have the experience of the Baby Boomer generation to be able to recognize Leftist tactics and ploys. Their idealism is cleverly exploited in order to serve the sinister agenda of the Left.
The 12 years of gross mismanagement under the Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regimes had provided the Left a fertile ground for recruitment, thus allowing them to expand their operations. The Left thrives on a deeply disillusioned citizenry such as what we had during the Arroyo regime. Knowing how they were frustrated by the Cory Aquino administration, they are now desperately seeking ways and means not to allow the P-Noy administration to take off.
The government should monitor very closely these activities that the Left is launching to kick up dust for their commemoration of the January 22 Mendiola incident. Thanks to modern technology and it is easier now to monitor these public activities with closed circuit TV cameras. If the Left could do it before, expect them to consider instigating another incident which can derail the P-Noy administration and erode its goodwill.
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