Legacy

"LET US work hard together for the good of the nation and for our party’s victory in 2010, when by the mighty hand of Lakas and the blessings and support of the Filipino people, I shall pass on the torch of national leadership in a milieu of tranquility, justice, hope and economic well-being for our beloved countrymen.”
With that statement spoken at Monday’s national directorate assembly of the Lakas-CMD, has President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her legacy speech?
Don’t know really but GMA said so much and meant little with that simple paragraph. As I gleaned from friends in the café society at SM City Clark.
As she’s passing the torch, so she’s stepping down in 2010. After completion of her term, of course. Clear and precise. As her December 30, 2003 “I-will-not-run” promise?
Doubting Thomases, begone. Let the President be. She’s had many an epiphany since 2003. Didn’t she once say, for some small lapse in judgment, “I am sorry”?
There is some cocky sureness that the merger of Lakas and Kampi which GMA endorsed during the assembly will not only win in 2010 but will dominate Philippine politics in “a two-decade period.”
Why, the usually God-invoking GMA did not even need to ejaculate “Providence” to ensure victory and domination, confident of “the mighty hand of Lakas” and the “blessings and support of the Filipino people” as the only requisites.
My favorite coffeeshop philosopher was quick to translate those phrases to “the mighty hand of the military” and the “blessings of the Comelec, ala Garci.” With these, will anyone find any need for God, asked he. You, malicious you.
“Our merged party (Lakas-Kampi) will be a colossus that calls to mind Mahathir of Malaysia, whose decades- old dominant political machinery, supported by key business groups, provided the underpinning for Malaysia’s development.” Ironically, on the same day the President said this, her model – Malaysia’s United Malays National Organization – suffered an embarrassing electoral debacle.
Opposition leader and former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim made a spectacular political comeback after being sacked in 1998, tortured, tried and convicted in court – for sodomy, among others – and imprisoned. Anwar is a friend of the pardoned Erap Estrada. Some foreboding signs here?
The President’s take on 2010 is “a milieu of tranquility, justice, hope and economic well-being for our beloved countrymen.”
Truth – so instantaneously pointed out by a Lozada-loving academician – is not factored in GMA’s express legacy. It is not in her milieu, as she is not in the milieu of Truth, he smirked.
Tranquility? It means the peace of the cemetery, retorted an old aktibista into his third espresso.
Justice, hope? Tell that to Edith Burgos and the kin of the hundreds of desaparecidos and the victims of extra-judicial killings. Again, the aktibista speaking.
Economic well-being? Didn’t we just read from the papers last week the 2006 Official Poverty Statistics Report that said four million seven hundred thousand families – a full 26.9 percent of the total number of Filipino families – were poor in 2006?
“At the average of five individuals per family, that number, staggering as it is, would directly translate to an even horrendous 23,500,000 persons or over 25 percent of the national population.” The Punto! editorial even said.
So what economic well-being was GMA talking about?
Well, it is still over two years to the end of her term in 2010. Maybe, just maybe, GMA could still wield some miracle. We just got to trust her.
Is that a tall order? Trusting her, I mean. Maybe I should talk to Candaba’s Jerry Pelayo more often.