Tomorrow is the 45th Anniversary of the New People's Army (NPA) and while the NPA's are planning some kind of "Show or Force" by firing a 21-gun salute in full uniform, they are actually daring the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to stop them. Call it humbug if you wish. But in truth, the NPA's are smarting over the recent arrest of Benito Tiamzon, chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA and his wife Wilma Tiamzon, Secretary General of the CPP/NPA.
But what kind of celebration will the communists have? That for 45 years they sowed terror in the Philippine countryside and killed so many innocent soldiers and civilians all in the name of an ideology that is no longer embraced in its country of birth… Russia. Forty-five years later, the NPA is nowhere near the strategic stalemate that they wanted to happen here. Filipinos are too smart to accept a communist government for our country.
Last March 23rd former ambassador Rigoberto Tiglao, who was Press Secretary under then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and a former communist wrote a damning article in his column in the Manila Times entitled "The Tragedy of the Philippine Left." Let me reprint an excerpt of this article.
"It was Marcos' martial law that drove thousands of students, including the best and the brightest, into the Communist Party. Those Marxist claims that the state was a violent instrument of the ruling class all of a sudden appeared at that time to be so true. It would only be later that we---including Tiamzon-would learn that party chairman Jose Sison in fact, and ironically, played a crucial role in the imposition of martial law. He ordered the Plaza Miranda bombing of the Liberal Party leaders in August 1971.
That created what Sison termed as another "Revolutionary flow" much needed when that which broke out in 1970 seemed to be dying out like some youthful fad. That convinced Marcos about a year later to impose Martial Law, which allowed him to remain in power beyond his second, and last term. The bombing gave him a good excuse that politics in the country had become too violent and anarchic that it needed strongman rule-as our neighbors in Southeast Asia had."
Now we can add Martial Law as one of the gains of the NPA's 45-year reign. In short, the NPA's gave Pres. Marcos the reason to declare Martial Law and forever altered the course of Philippine democracy. So all the more that Filipinos should fight communism for they haven't done the Filipino people any good and only helped worsen our situation.
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I'm sure that by now you must have heard that Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Henares proposed to have the Bank Secrecy Law repealed so that the BIR can look into your accounts and if you have more money than what you reported in your income tax, then you'd be in big trouble. This is what happens when you have a BIR commissioner who wants to get more from your personal pockets.
A couple of weeks ago, Kim Henares attacked the professionals, notably doctors of medicine, for not paying their taxes and came up with that advertisement where the doctors were on top of the lowly teachers who had to carry them because the teachers supposedly paid their taxes. This was totally unfair to the medical profession.
Mind you, not all doctors earn a lot. I submit that there are super doctors out there who make tons of money everyday. However the majority are barely making a living. But the medical association is fighting back, questioning Kim Henares what she is doing about the corruption in the BIR? However in my book, the bigger corruption is in the Legislature where senators and congressmen get millions, if not hundreds of millions, from the money that the BIR collects. I'm sure that the corrupt BIR bureaucrats steal so much less than what our supposedly "honorable" but corrupt men and women in the Legislature pocket from our government coffers.
So back to the repeal of the Bank Secrecy Law -- I believe that it is time to come up with a debate on its pros and cons. For folks like me who really have nothing to hide, I'm not scared one bit that the Aquino regime would repeal the Bank Secrecy Law. But if there is anyone who ought to be scared shitless that the BIR wants this law repealed… it is the members of Congress and national government officials. I'm sure that those people especially the corrupt ones in the government would be vehemently against this proposal because they have a lot to hide.
So should we be scared that this proposal to repeal the Bank Secrecy Law comes from the BIR? To repeal a law, it needs an act from Congress and I'm willing to bet that no one in Congress would even dare file a bill to repeal the Bank Secrecy Law because it is akin to shooting one's foot with one's own gun. So go ahead Mrs. Kim Henares…make my day!
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Email: vsbobita@gmail.com