Buencamino is a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms. This was published in the March 24, 2010 edition of the Business Mirror, page A6.
The Supreme Court is always right even when it is wrong. – Rep. Rodolfo “Rodito” Albano III
I was depressed by the Supreme Court’s decision upholding Gloria Arroyo’s power to appoint the next chief justice. No, not because they did what everyone expected they would but because it’s sad when nine associate justices of the highest court in the land cannot even comprehend a simple sentence.
As if a comprehension-challenged Court were not enough to spoil one’s entire week, newly appointed deputy spokesman Charito Planas had to go on air to speculate about a military junta taking over in case of a failure of elections. Fortunately I had enough sense to know that her statement was timed to distract the public from focusing solely on the Court’s decision. So it didn’t disturb me as much as those white gobs that collect at the corners of her mouth when she speaks.
Anyway, Carmen Pedrosa, newspaper columnist and Cha-cha advocate, saved my week with a fantastic story premised on the evil designs of a “former colonial power.” Her new thriller, “Dangerous Games”, is almost as good as her earlier work, “People’s Initiative: A grand deception and a gigantic fraud on the people.”
“The main objective of this intervention,” she wrote, “was to frustrate constitutional reform and to make sure that a candidate of their choosing should be elected. That candidate was Noynoy. Originally, it was Mar Roxas but he was not getting anywhere in the polls even with the fairy tale story of his romance with broadcaster Korina, redolent of Imelda and Jacqueline syndromes.”
Hmmm. A former colonial power wants to frustrate constitutional reform that could conceivably allow the return of permanent foreign military bases in the country and the lifting of all restrictions on land ownership and exploitation of natural resources by foreign investors?
She continued, “The operatives had to think fast on how to get out of the dilemma. The answer came with the death of Cory Aquino. A scenario not very different from Ninoy’s funeral would be the catalyst to propel a new strategy — cultivate the myth of Noynoy and get out of the earlier commitment to Roxas.”
“The strategy was of a similar mold that propelled Cory Aquino to become President of the Philippines regardless that she was a mere housewife. Granted that there was an outpouring of sympathy on her death. But I did hear people saying they went because they were curious. Others noticed that the yellow umbrellas that suddenly popped out to shelter spectators from rain were of a sturdy kind and could not have been made so quickly. Yellow umbrellas, yellow ribbons, yellow confetti had an almost fiesta-like atmosphere inappropriate to mourning for death, but you don’t have to be an expert to see the political intent. It was serious. Where were the same crowds when Cory attempted year after year to lead protests to oust the Arroyo government? Well, they materialized suddenly on her death and should a case not be made that if they did so, there would be enough sympathy to catapult the son to the presidential candidate of the hour? And so it did.”
So, Mrs. Pedrosa, were agents of the former colonial power behind Ninoy’s assassination? What about Cory’s death, were they responsible for that one too? Otherwise why set the stage by for an assassination plot line mentioning strategy and ascribing “political intent” to the spontaneous outpouring of sympathy on her death?
Sayang, you could have had a best seller if you pursued the Cory assassination angle instead of shifting your storyline to Iran, Mosaddegh, and the CIA. You could have had a thriller involving an assassin disguised as a nurse, secret factories producing yellow umbrellas, yellow ribbons, and yellow confetti, a shadowy network of drug dealers serving as distribution agents for those “props”, and a short dusky woman with a lisp fighting the big bad former colonial power.Well, maybe in your next work of pulp fiction na lang.