Why the resignation call cannot take off
On my way to school to hold a special class on Constitutional law, on the day of the Chinese new year celebration, I happily came upon two former political allies. They too seemed ecstatic to see me. After all, our bond went to my early days of politicking, more than two decades ago. They apparently had not lost an ounce of their political zest as indicated by their animated discussion on the social action direction of the group called Bayan Muna.
The younger of the two said he was set to join the signature campaign allegedly spearheaded by Bayan Muna calling for the resignation of His Excellency, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III. He liked the idea of Bayan Muna's relying upon a constitutional mechanism for a change of power. In the event the president should heed the peoples' call to step down from office, manifested via millions of signatures, solicited supposedly by Bayan Muna, the change of the nation's command would be without blood.
However, the older guy, to my surprise, built his argument against the president's resignation by questioning the motives of Bayan Muna. Argumentum ad hominem of sort. I was surprised because when we were still in close contact, I discerned that he was espousing the cause of the social democrats of which Bayan Muna, in its earlier name that I cannot anymore recall, was its foremost exponent. He was a socdem before we met.
The older one sounded historical. He recalled that the predecessor of Bayan Muna was at the forefront of all massed actions against former President Ferdinand Marcos. At every proverbial drop of the hat, he went wherever that group demonstrated. He cited two familiar places where they shouted slogans - at the 3rd PC Zone camp, Jones Avenue (now PNP Regional Office) and at the United States Information Service (USIS) at the SSS Building because Marcos was allegedly propped by the Americans.
When the late Corazon C. Aquino assumed the reins of government, Bayan Muna, my friend claimed, focused its attention on the new president. Rather than support Tita Cory, like what the whole country showed, the group also assumed the role of defiance. My memory was vague on an incident that my older ally mentioned. According to him, Bayan Muna was responsible for organizing the demonstration of farmers near the Mendiola access of the Malacañang that turned to be a bloody event. Many people died in that incident and my friend said that the Cory administration was even more brutal than the one she replaced!
Tita Cory's immediate successor, former President Fidel V. Ramos was not spared. According to my friend, he remembered the noisy (his word) demonstrations they staged mostly at the corner of Colon Street and Osmeña Boulevard to denounce the "fascist" (also his coinage) regime of Ramos. In fact, when Ramos tried to tinker with the constitution in the hope of getting a fresh term as president, Bayan Muna led the most vitriolic massed actions.
Thinking that I had little time left for my class, I had to rush asking my friend. Was Bayan Muna friendly to the succeeding presidents? His quick answer was in the negative. Differently said, it was the contention of my old ally that Bayan Muna was always on the warpath no matter who was the president. He did not say it but the image he wanted to draw was that Bayan Muna only sought to destabilize the establishment. They waved their flag, as if victorious in war during the Middle Ages, on top of an EDSA fly over while hundreds of thousands demanded the ouster of past president Estrada because a fall of a president shook the foundations of government.
Mixing with the swelling crowd of protesters, they were equally vociferous against the former president Arroyo. When the crowd swelled as they centered their demonstrations on the "hello Garci" scandal early on in her own supposed election as the country's leader, Bayan Muna saw the cracks of a democratic regime.
In all honesty, my eyes opened to hard historical facts. Thanks to my old political campaigner, I realized that the call for President Aquino might appear substantive on the constitutional table, but Bayan Muna is the brittle leg that supports it.
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