‘Buy the people…’

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

Pinoys love to play with words and have a way of twisting famous quotes and statements depending on what they experience. For example, I heard my friend Joe Zambrano of the Philippine Information Agency twist the “sipag at tyaga” infomercial of billionaire businessman Manny Villar to something like “C-5 at taga.”

Abraham Lincoln had a statement about his government and country. “A government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.” This is the last line of the Gettysburg Address he delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Pennsylvania after the Union armies defeated the Confederacy.

His famous quote accurately describes his government then and now. That is not the kind that we have in the Philippines. Ours is a country 30 or more years younger than the Americas. But while the Americans continue to improve their ways of governance, our government seems to be rotting away or veering away from the freedoms it fought for in many wars in the past.

This reminds me of another Lincoln famous quote which goes: “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

Last week, I received a text message that was a distorted variation of Lincoln ’s famous quote but which may be true in some ways. The text message wanted to point out that if we will not be careful in choosing the next president, the national leadership might be one who will “fool the people and buy the people.”

It could fittingly be linked to the latest news report, where Dick Gordon accused Villar’s camp of attempting to bribe him.

Gordon said that through a former cabinet official who acted as an emissary, Villar offered him a Cabinet post and reimbursement of his campaign expenses in exchange for pulling out of the presidential race and joining a plot to unseat Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

Aside from that, Enrile also revealed that Villar tried to buy him off by offering his “assistance” if he (Enrile) changed his position on the C-5 road project controversy. This happened a day after the Senate formally presented the committee report recommending the censure of Villar for alleged unethical conduct.

Now, isn’t that dangerous. Such revelations by his peers can not be taken for granted. How can 12 senators who signed the committee report go wrong? Villar’s camp says the C-5 committee report was all about politics since he was running for president.

But by their refusal to face the committee in the senate just because those who signed the report are their political rivals, it only shows that Villar and his men are the ones who are politicking for intentionally treating the “C5 at taga” controversy as a political issue.

In the end, it is we the people who will choose who the next president will be, but voters must be warned of candidates who have billions to spend if only to get elected to Malacanang.
***
In a presscon held with local news correspondents last week, Senator Dick Gordon and vice presidential bet Bayani Fernando promised to “clean not only Malacanang but the whole government.”

This was the duo’s answer to Raffy Resuello, a businessman in Baguio , who took off his soiled shirt that bore the Malacanang seal, handed it to Gordon and said “please clean Malacanang.”

A commerce student at the University of Baguio and chairman of the UB Student Council in 1990, Raffy was one among hundreds who was pinned down between the ceiling and fourth floor of the commerce building when the killer EQ struck.

Now a businessman who runs a boarding house, Raffy who wears an artificial left arm as a result of the 1990 EQ, he felt that his future suddenly changed because he always thought of becoming a successful executive in the business field.

Today, only few are contented with what they do in life, whether they “lumangoy sa basura or buy their political supporters with their billions.” But like Noynoy Aquino, Mar Roxas, Gordon and Nick Perlas, Raffy Resuello simply dreams of getting rid of corrupt people in government, especially in Malacanang. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com