THE overwhelming majority of the Filipino people are seething with disgust and discontent, owing to the failed governance of the present dispensation in responding to the needs of the citizenry. The economy is at a standstill, if not in shambles. Inflation has escalated. The dollar exchange has reached a dangerous level to an unprecedented P64 to $1. As a consequence, the skyrocketing of prices of basic commodities has remained unabated. The poverty level is up, so is unemployment. Foreign investors have not come in, while others have left for other countries whose business infrastructures and absence of bureaucratic red tape and corrupt officials have become magnets for them.
The labor force is restless, demanding higher wages. The agricultural players and the fishermen are complaining of government neglect of their needs. Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are not far behind in their discontentment with the government’s impotence to protect them in the foreign countries where they are situated while eking out a living for their families for lack of work opportunities in the homeland.
Corruption has reached a revolting height, with government officials pocketing billions of pesos of the taxpayers’ money intended to control floods and to build infrastructure projects and government schools, hospitals and other buildings.
An equal number of millions of Filipinos are on the precipice and percolating in anger at the powerholders who have launched a program of political retribution against their enemies, starting with former president Rodrigo Duterte, whose unlawful arrest, detention, rendition and incarceration at The Hague brought about the political debacle of the administration candidates in the 2022 elections. They followed it up with the impeachment of his daughter, Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte, whose conviction is almost a certainty because they have blatantly violated the constitutional threshold requirement for conviction by intimidating, coercing and jailing a sizable number of senators-judges. The presiding officer of the impeachment court ruled to approve the withdrawal of the articles of impeachment after the prosecution had presented its evidence, destroying Sara’s reputation and character, depicting her before the world as a criminal and a plunderer, who is unfit to remain in office and to serve in a higher post or in any other capacity, thereby divesting her of her right to present countervailing evidence for her defense, in brazen violation of due process accorded her by the Constitution.
Under these compelling, coercive, intimidating circumstances and unconstitutional machinations, where is the country headed to, perdition? Who will lead the people from this wretched situation and lift them from their misery and state of hopelessness? What will the people do to free themselves from the negative forces that chain them? In 1429, a 17-year-old Frenchwoman, guided by divine vision, led the French army to defeat the English forces and end their domination over France.
She was Joan of Arc, who became a national symbol of freedom and independence of France, later canonized as one of the patron saints of France.
In 1763, 32-year-old Gabriela Silang was the first Filipino woman to lead an armed revolt against Spanish rule following the assassination of her rebel leader husband Diego Silang. She died a martyr.
She would have rather died fighting than live under Spanish tyranny.
Aung San Suu Kyi fought against military tyranny in Myanmar, formerly called Burma. She became a symbol of peaceful resistance against authoritarian rule. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. After being jailed for more than 15 years by the military, she won a landslide victory in 2015, but the military blocked her from the presidency, letting her assume the role of state counselor.
In 2021, the military staged a coup, overthrowing the democratically elected government and placing her again under custody. She remains a heavily restricted prisoner of the military junta and a powerful symbol of defiance against tyranny.
Three women in past and present history have shown ferocious courage in fighting tyrannical rule and domination.
Vice President Duterte has become the face of the opposition against the tyrannical rule of the present dispensation. Despite all the government resources thrown against her, she remains unbowed, defiant and principled. Like Joan of Arc, Gabriela Silang and Aung Sun Suu Kyi, she will lead the Filipino people against oppression, tyranny, misrule and corruption.
She has crossed her Rubicon; there is no turning back. Threats against her life, unlawful removal from office and trumped-up criminal charges that could lead to a conviction and jail will not deter her from her principled and courageous stand against those who betrayed the people’s trust and plundered the nation’s wealth.
She will be on the ramparts and lead the people to victory against the oppressors and the tyrants of this generation.
She will use every platform, including leading the masses of our people in massive peaceful street protests, a constitutionally guaranteed right of peaceable assembly, against the malefactors, scoundrels and wrongdoers in the government who violate the Constitution with impunity.
She will continue to call on the charlatans to change their wicked ways and to account for their sins against the Filipino people.
When she sounds the clarion call, the people will follow.