One would be churlish to wish the peace missioners ill, specially if their "aim" is to end a 35-year-old communist insurgency. But it won’t happen. Chief government negotiator Silvestre "Bebot" Bello III has been beating that hopeless peace drum for half a decade now, accompanied on the cymbals by the current National Defense Secretary (ex-General, ex-Congressman) Eduardo Ermita, chief sacristan of the surrender Gang, and sundry other would-be "peace-at-any-price" touters.
President Macapagal-Arroyo, naturally, sent the group off to Oslo on a wing and a prayer – the latter a full-blown ceremony, highlighted by a Mass at the EDSA Shrine. The trouble with the coming "negotiations" is the fact that Communist Party Supremo and National Democratic Front chief consultant Joma Sison knows he’s got the upper hand in the anticipated discussions because GMA hungers for her own "peace dividend" – i.e., the opportunity to brandish a peace deal as her crowning achievement when the voters go to the polls next May 10.
Will Sison and his sidekick, defrocked Father Luis Jalandoni, now a Dutch citizen, oblige? They’ll dangle the inducement in front of our dear Presidenta’s eyes, while putting the rebel New People’s Army here on "red alert" (if you’ll pardon the expression), ready to take advantage of the anticipated turmoil if the Supreme Court rejects her arch-rival Fernando Poe Jr. (alias Ronnie) as not a "natural-born Filipino".
Do the NPAs, NDF agitators and the radical Left expect such a development? You bet. Ka Roger Rosal may be warbling peace, like love’s sweet song, but you can be certain those old Marxist-Leninist-Maoist cadres smell a classical "revolutionary situation" brewing.
As a giveaway sign of the GMA government’s eagerness to clinch a peace agreement, Bello announced before departure that 24 political detainees are scheduled to be released by the end of March. Sanamagan. You don’t give concessions before you even begin to negotiate. It’s a sign of weakness. And weakness is what Communists, and, to be sure, other rebels of whatever ideological or religious stripe, hasten to exploit.
"Si vis pacem, pare bellum," the ancient Roman adage went. (If you want peace, prepare for war.)
In our case, we’re trying to secure peace by disarming ourselves. We’ll be repaid only in the coin of scorn and ridicule, once the Joma and Louie Gang milk the Oslo situation for all its worth, leaving us in the end with egg all over our faces.
And the NPA violently at our doorstep.
In the meantime, Joma is riding high – thanks to our government’s showering him with "importance" instead of treating him like the international terrorist he is, and how he has been appropriately labeled. Owing to the Oslo invitation, Joma has been granted a laissez-passer by the Dutch (he’s got no Philippine passport, nor Dutch passport for that matter) for travel to Norway. There, on February 8, he was scheduled to celebrate his 65th birthday. Gee whiz. Did Bello get there in time to sing "For he’s a jolly good fellow"?
As for our friends, the Norwegians, we thank them for their concern. Those ex-Vikings (in medieval times the warlike scourge of Christian communities, but now devout Lutherans) wish to be known as the Peace Brokers of the world – Odin and Thor the thunderer must be disappointed in the former Berserkers.
A number of edifying peace accords for other conflicts have been signed in Oslo. The question remains – have any of them succeeded?
This one, alas, won’t. The NPAs are enjoying themselves too much in their rampage across the Philippines, collecting "taxes" willy-nilly. The "dialectic"? That’s long-ago history. What they’re engaged in is a grab for power – and their vicious version of blackmail "capitalism".
The funny thing is that when queried about it by his home studio, ABS-CBN, De Castro pooh-poohed the very idea, but added the caveat that in this country, of course, anything could happen.
Sus – just get the campaign rolling today! (It’s been rolling for weeks already, really.) For GMA-De Castro, the first official pit-stop is Laguna.
Just in case, however, our readers think we’re in an unfortunate country uniquely misgoverned by family and warlord dynasties, just look at Greece – where the next Olympics will be staged, but, more importantly, the ancient land which gave the world the idea and the name of democracy – demos krataos. Is Greece truly a democracy, lahat pantay-pantay?
Just consider the two men who’re fighting each other for the Presidency today – Georgios Papandreou of the leftwing party, and Kostas Karamanlis.
Papandreou is the grandson of his namesake, the late President Georgios P., who in 1963 was voted into power to form the first center-left government. His father, Andreas Papandreou, brought his leftwing PASOK into power in 1981 to form Greece’s first out-and-out Socialist government – and was re-elected to a third term in 1993. Andreas P. died in 19967.
And now comes Georgie Boy. Talk about dynasties.
As for Karamanlis, he’s the grandson of Konstantinos Karamanlis who was elected Prime Minister in 1974, following the fall of the military junta of former rightwing colonels who seized control in 1967 and forced King Constantine into exile.
"The Greeks had a word for it," as the saying goes. Yes. They invented the word for "democracy", and also for tyrannos – tyranny. Dynasty, too. It’s still alive and well over there: Dynasty, I mean.
The UMP, which now goes into mid-term elections with this cloud over its head, had been intended to be a springboard for Juppe’s presidential ambitions – but this intention is now in the dust. Worse, despite Chirac’s frowns, the energetic and ambitious, two-fisted Interior Minister, Nicolas Sharkozy is rising to the fore, threatening to seize predominance in the shell-shocked ruling party – which had been devised to be Chirac’s personal political machine. In fact, a CSA poll just conducted has revealed that the graft-busting Sarkozy is likely to receive twice as many votes as any rival in any leadership tilt. What President Chirac fears (The Financial Times Paris correspondent Jo Johnson revealed the other day) is that, with the dismayed UMP machine switching allegiance to him, Sarkozy could be "unstoppable" in 2007, when the President’s mandate – "and with its immunity from prosecution" – expires.
Would Sarkozy prosecute Chirac? He’s the kind of guy who might do just that.
Reminds us of the fact that some politicians are in mortal fear of candidate Panfilo "Ping" Lacson’s threat that, if elected, he would use a kamay na bakal ("mailed fist") to go after the ungodly. Lacson may still be low in the surveys, but there’s no underestimating his determination.
Yesterday, five desperados "escaped" from the Tanauan City Jail in Batangas – two of them murder suspects and the other two kidnappers. With law and order deteriorating in such an alarming way, what kind of leadership will many Filipinos conclude they need? Will GMA give us such leadership? FPJ, Lacson? Roco? Or Brother Eddie "Let us Pray"?