> Open
Letter
REPRINTED below is an anonymous open letter whose messages and
sentiments I personally share.
Dear Tita Cory, Senators, Congressmen, Businessmen, Media people,
Leftists, and all Bleeding Hearts Out There:
I am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are
angrier than I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple.
I am sick and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for many
Filipinos and me. I feel like screaming every time you mouth words
about fighting for my freedom and my rights, when you obviously
are just thinking about yours. You tell me that the essence of
democracy is providing every citizen the right to speak his or her
mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you
yourselves do not respect my silence and the choices I and many
others have made. In other words, your concept of democracy is
limited to having your rights and your freedoms respected, at the
expense of ours.
I am utterly flabbergasted that you still do not get it: we
already responded to your calls, and our response has been very
clear - we chose not to heed your calls to go to EDSA or to Fort
Bonifacio not because we do not love our country or our freedoms
or our rights, but precisely because we love our country even
more. Because quite frankly, we are prepared to lose our freedoms
and our rights just to move this country forward. You may counter
with your ideological propaganda and give me all the dire warnings
about the evils of Martial Law, authoritarian rule, suppression of
freedom, etc., but quite frankly all we see is your pathetic
efforts to defend your right to continue fulminating,
filibustering, and sabotaging this country until you wrestle power
for yourselves. You tell me that you are simply protecting my
freedoms and my rights, but who told you to do that? I assure you
that when I feel that my rights and my freedoms are at a peril, I
will stand up and fight for them myself. I have done in the past,
and I will do it again when I SEE THE NEED FOR IT, not when you
tell me to do it.
You tell us that GMA is not the right person to lead this country
because she has done immoral acts. As someone who sees immorality
being committed wantonly in many ways every day and by everyone
(yes, including the ones you do), I may have become jaded. I may
have lowered my standards about what a leader should be. Guess
what Tita Cory you lowered it yourself. When I accepted your
incompetence and fought for you during the many attempts against
your government, I already lowered the standards to ridiculous
levels. Guess what, Senators and Congressmen, you lowered it
yourselves when you ran for office and won and now make fools of
yourselves in the august halls of congress.
But the simple truth that you try to obfuscate is this: you have
not been able to offer me any viable alternative! On the other
hand, GMA has bent over backwards many times to accommodate you
while continuing to work hard despite all the obstacles and the
brickbats you have thrown her way. From where I sit, she is the
one who has been working really hard to move this country forward
while all of you have been so busy with one and only one thing: to
make sure she does not succeed. So forgive me if I do not want to
join you in your moral pissing contest. Forgive me if I have
chosen to see things from another perspective. You say she is the
problem. I say, we are - all of us are the problem; more to the
point, I think you are a bigger problem than she is. Taking her
out may solve part of the problem, but that leaves us with a
bigger problem: you. That is right, YOU!
While I felt outraged that she called a Comelec official during
the elections and that she may have rigged the elections, I have
since then taken the higher moral ground and forgiven her. Yes my
dear bishops, I have done what you have told me to do since I was
a child, which you say is the Christian and moral thing to do:
forgive. Especially since she has asked for forgiveness and has
tried to make amends for it. Erap certainly has not apologized and
continues to be defiant, continuing to insult us everyday with his
protestations - and he is part of your cause now! Cory has not
apologized for her incompetence but we have forgiven her just the
same because like GMA, she has worked hard after all.
I know you do not think that GMA’s apology was not enough, or that
she was insincere, or that that apology should not be the end of
it, but please spare me the hypocrisy of telling me that you do so
for the sake of protecting the moral fibre of society. The real
reason is because you smell blood and wants to go for the kill.
Well, I have news for you. I do not like her too. I did not even
vote for her. I voted for Raul Roco. But as much as I do not like
her, I do not like you even more. I may not trust her, but you
know what, I do not trust you even more. You know why I do not
trust you? Because all you do is whine and sabotage this country.
You belittle every little progress we make; conveniently
forgetting that it is not just GMA who has been working so hard to
achieve them. Every single day, we keep the faith burning in our
hearts that this country will finally pull itself out of the mess
and we work so hard to do that. Every little progress is the
result of our collective effort, we who toil hard everyday in our
jobs. Yet, you persist in one and only thing: making GMA look bad
in the eyes of the world and making sure that this country
continues to suffer to prove your sorry point. In the process, you
continue to destroy what we painstakingly try to build. So please
do not be surprised that I do not share your cause. Do not be
surprised that we have become contemptuous of your antics. You
have moved heaven and earth to destroy her credibility, you have
convened all kinds of fora and hearings and all you have done is
test our patience to the core. For all your efforts, you have only
succeeded in dragging us further down. I say enough.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not asking that we take immorality lying
down, or that we let the President get away with anything illegal.
But you have tried to prove your accusations all these time and
you have not succeeded, so it is time to let things be. Besides,
you are doing something immoral as well if not utterly
unforgivable. The Magdalo soldiers are consorting with the
communists - the same people who have been trying to kill
democracy for years. Cory has been consorting with Erap and the
Marcoses.
So please wake up and take a reality check. In the absence of true
and genuine moral leadership, many of us have decided to cast our
lot with the President, even if we do not like her. A flawed
leader is better than scheming power hungry fools who can not even
stand up for their convictions in the face of an impending arrest.
Your coup attempts and the denials that you have consequently made
only underscore what we think is true: you are spineless and
unreliable people who only want power but not the consequences and
the sacrifices that go with the quest. Your one and only defense
is to cry suppression when your ruse does not work. You are
nothing but BULLIES who taunt and provoke, but cry oppression when
taken to task for your cruelty. You call for the rule of law and
respect for authority, but so brazenly display your defiance and
disrespect for the same things you claim to be fighting for.
I would have respected you if you took the consequences of your
actions like real heroes: calmly and responsibly instead of
kicking and screaming and making all kinds of lame excuses. You
say you are willing to die for us, that you do all these things
for the country and the Filipino, but you are not even willing to
go to jail for us.
Come on, you really think we believe that you did not want to
bring down the government when THAT IS THE ONE AND ONLY ONE THING
THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DESPERATELY TRYING TO DO in the last many
months?
We love this country and we want peace and progress. Many among us
do not give a f**k who sits at Malacanang because we will work
hard and do our share to make things work. We the people will and
can make it work, if only you get out of the way and let us do it.
If you only do your jobs, the ones you are supposed to be doing,
things would be a lot simpler and easier for all of us.
The events during the weekend only proved one thing. You are more
dangerous and a serious threat to this country than GMA is. We
have seen what you are capable of doing - you are ready to burn
this country and reduce everything to ashes just to prove your
point. If there is something that we need protection from, IT IS
PROTECTION FROM YOU.
