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Erap: A national ‘education moment’

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

10/23/2009

A barrage of headlines trumpeting the “last performance” of Erap’s life awakened the nation to the reality of Wednesday’s informal Miting de Avance for the Ama ng Masang Pilipino — complete with fireworks, plus scores of provincial and national officials in attendance. Suddenly, Erap was not a phantom candidate anymore. His unequivocal declaration now poses a challenge not only to the administration and other presidential aspirants, but to the roughly 50 million Filipino voters whose voice he has always adhered to. Indeed, he says: “Why should 12 magistrates decide the fate of this nation? The voice of the people is the voice of God.”

President Joseph Estrada is the most intellectual of all the presidents after the late President Ferdinand Marcos, albeit in a very different way. Whereas Marcos was a phenomenal legal, financial, and historical whiz, who planned in methodical cadence his rise to power and his national development objectives, Erap Estrada is everything that a celebrated movie star is. Though rising to his first political post due to his star power, a lot, lot more is hidden within Erap that makes him unwavering in his view of the true and the good, even at the expense of politics.

Erap’s constant bullheaded charge into a phalanx of Yellow forces, including their tacit ally Gloria Arroyo, provides an insight into what drives him: An irrepressible determination to affirm his truth against established hypocrisies of the prevailing oppressive order.

As mainstream media bannered the five presidential candidates’ stand on jueteng last Tuesday, Erap’s lone advocacy for its legalization became the only significant highlight. The other four, who expectedly toed the line of the institutional Catholic Church and the rest of hypocritical Philippine society, simply betrayed their double standard. For one, they know that the outlawing of illegal gambling is well nigh impossible. Even in Fujian, China, where the totalitarian state had already tried to suppress illegal games of chance to no avail as far back as my teens, we can see why legalization has become the preferred route all over the world. For another, while they continue to feign disgust over the poor man’s game of jueteng, they nonetheless express approval for legalized gambling operations such as sweepstakes, casinos, lotto, etc., which are no different at all.

The same logic used to justify such legal games of chance, i.e. revenues are used for charity and job creation, is the same argument that Erap uses for the legalization of jueteng. But, it seems, sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander for these anti-jueteng frauds.

And since the irrepressible intellectual-moral honesty of Erap cannot accept such lopsided contradictions, he, too, cannot accept one brand of justice for the rich and another for the poor in a “system” that purports to be a just democracy.

For sure, Erap’s vision of an egalitarian state is not completely socialist just yet, but his aspirations for a fair society are still a direct assault on the present oligarchic order.

Estrada is all about the defiance of conventional hypocrisies, like the “sovereign guarantees” used as cover by corrupt Big Business elites and their government bureaucracy partners for their “build-operate-transfer” schemes in fleecing the taxpayers. Others, like Obama in the US and Villar et al. in the Philippines, are all controlled by Big Money.

Erap’s focus on state-driven development, like Marcos, in such projects as irrigation and carabao industry development, as well as, in policies on national sovereignty (one country, one flag) and the like, defies the hypocrisy of the finance and stock market-driven neo-colonial economic model.

Erap is an “education moment” for the nation — rich and poor. It is that moment when the “…insights that make it all come together for you… brings you that wonderful moment when it suddenly all makes sense — the ‘moment it clicks.’”

And so, the morning after the rally, all the buzz centered on Erap’s candidacy, even amid pointless disqualification threats from Romulo Macalintal and Ed Ermita. More and more people are now being primed for action.

For indeed, if we are to be free, we must learn to heed what BusinessWorld’s Dean de la Paz has quoted again and again from the 25th Justice of the US Supreme Court: “The Constitution does not derive its force from the convention which framed it, but from the people who ratified it. The intent to be arrived at is that of the people.”

My favorite press peeve, Billy Esposo, thinks it’s absolutely cute to make something out of the nothing that his candidate is. Why, he’s now even likening his bet’s standing in the fraudulent SWS surveys (funded by the Makati Business Club) to Magsaysay’s 1953 vote tally! Of course, the US and Namfrel rigged that election; but setting this aside, at least the late “Guy” was able to inspire some awe, and not chuckles about a drooping jaw.

So with this I say, “Enough with the hypocrites and their hypocrisy! Let the people speak. Let the GMA regime and the Yellows, along with their ABS-CBN and Inquirer, plus their Supreme Court and their US ambassador do their worst. We, the people, will stand up for truth, honor, justice, and the Philippines’ liberation; for we learn from history.”

(Tune in to 1098AM, Sulong Pilipinismo, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21, Talk News TV, Tuesday, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m.; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)