Of the three English language dailies in Cebu, the editors-in-chief of two, Pachico A. Seares of SunStar and this writer are members of the association, as are Court of Appeals Justice Portia Alino Hormachuelos and Secretary Cerge Remonde of the Presidential Management Staff.
This year's officers are Philippines News Agency bureau chief Eddie O. Barrita, president; Pat Morales, vice president; Fred Sipalay Jr., secretary; Felix Matuguina, treasurer; Eladio Dioko, auditor; Ramon Castillo and this writer, PROs.
Directors of the association are Fritz Quinanola, Susana Cabahug, Benjamin Alino, Reynoso Belarmino, Erlindo Constantino, Agustin Vestil, Solomon Baclayon, Romulo Senining, Remonde and Seares.
What happened in Iloilo was that heavily-armed policemen stormed the provincial Capitol in an attempt to forcibly evict Niel Tupas who decided to hold out in his office following an order by the Office of the Ombudsman dismissing him as governor on graft charges.
Tupas was able to secure a temporary restraining order from the Court of Appeals at the last minute, but not after police had broken some things in the barricaded government building and physically subdued some people, including relatives and supporters of Tupas.
The temporary restraining order may be able to buy a little peace in that troubled place until its affectivity expires. But it will never solve what has come to be a growing problem in the Philippines today.
Right now, it has become fashionable for politicians to invoke political harassment in order to circumvent lawful orders from competent authority. And why not, when the hangovers from Edsa have benumbed our minds with its uprising mentality?
The gains of Edsa have been betrayed and sold out even by those who were at first sincere at the original flowering of people power. Now everybody thinks that by gathering the crowds and resisting authority, heroism becomes automatic and unqualified.
Even if Tupas is innocent and is being unjustly removed, he ought to be able to make a principled stand by allowing the law to take its course. As the leading citizen of the province of Iloilo, he owes it to his constituents to lead the way in finding justice within the system.
Unfortunately, he has shown to everybody who has a television set that it is perfectly all right to resist authority, to defy lawful orders. And knowing how impressionable and gullible the Filipino is, it would surprise no one how quickly such insolence can catch on.
And to think we have given Tupas the benefit of the doubt by presuming he is innocent and is simply being harassed. Surely there are not that many Tupases out there who are truly clean and healthy.
We shudder to think then of the vast majority of others who truly deserve to be kicked out of service but who, the precedent having been set, may now be inspired to resist and put on a show by feigning innocence and claiming harassment.
This is the malaise that is gripping the country today. This is the scary eventuality that is making many Filipinos break into a cold sweat. Authority, rightly or wrongly, is swiftly being eroded.
The Tupas incident may very well be the first indication of our inexorable slide toward anarchy. When the symbols of authority are now the ones being portrayed as the bad guys, we must be pretty near that time when the country simply gives up the ghost and goes belly up.