Childish games

This is not a serious country, and perhaps we should be grateful for that. No slaughtered soldiers were brought out in body bags from the Pen yesterday, there was no dramatic end for Trillanes and his cohorts defending their right to room service in the Rizal ballroom.

In the warm light of another tropical day, yesterday’s events seem more like playground antics than a news event. All the most trivial and inconsequential elements of Philippine public life were on view:

-- the love of empty theatrics and uniforms,

-- the preference for bombast over coherent ideas (from General Lim’s statement, “The die is cast pursuant to our constitutional mandate as protector of the people and state”, see the whole windblown version here and Trillanes’s embarrassing attempt to explain what the hell he was doing),

-- the “Boy’s Own” language of the protagonists (“Barias then called up a “mistah” (military school classmate) on his cell phone and was heard saying in Filipino: ‘I’ve established a foothold’), and

-- and the national penchant for placing personal harmony above other considerations (lawyer Argee Guevarra on the atmosphere among the plotters -- “Everybody was in good spirits” -- gee that’s great Argee, so long as they are all having fun).

Yet, although I’m glad that Ayala didn’t run with blood yesterday, maybe the “hang ‘em high” mob at Carlos Celdran’s blog has a point. If life in the Philippines was more “serious”, if people faced real consequences for their actions, perhaps they might think twice before doing these things, and surely you wouldn’t have to think more than that to realize the how absurd and ridiculous yesterday’s events were.

Comments

[Sidney]

It was one big circus... and that is probably why I like this country so much.

[R Velasquez]

If my country was a serious one, we would have implemented meaningful and substantial reforms in our system. Given our natural resources and the people's skills, we should also have joined the ranks of wealthy and progessive nations long ago.

But then, we're not. Everything's just for show. Sad.

[Cogs]

It's hard to know where to start to address the chattering-class cynicism of Torn and others like him, who say that Trillanes' action was an empty gesture.

How may times on this blog have we seen locals say that they were sickened by Arroyo, by the corruption that surrounds her and by her disregard for the constitution, but that they were at the same time tired of protesting and prepared to accept that nothing could be done?

Here, in Trillanes, we have a young man who is prepared to give up everything -- his freedom, his family, his future -- to say No, something can be done, and, hell, the Philippines deserves better than what it has.

Yes, of course, his uprising was never going to succeed in overthrowing Arroyo. Does anybody, even Torn and his fellow-mockers, really believe that he thought it would?

Trillanes knew that with the charges he was already facing, he would not see the outside of a prison cell for at least 10 years. But he was prepared to double that to make the point to an international TV audience that there is still honour in ths terrific country -- and that Arroyo represents nothing more than the coven of cheats, hoodlums and crooks she has surrounded herself with.

As for the course of action Trillanes chose, what other options were there? All the constitutional institutions in this country, from the judiciary to Congress and even down to barangay level, are closed off, purchased by the presidential office. Trillanes had no options but to take his case to the people.

What troubles me most about Torn and the others like him is that they choose to focus on the futile nature of Trillanes' protest while failing to refer back to the cause of his anger -- that Arroyo has no constitutional right to be in office, that she perverts the national institutions and squanders the national wealth on ensuring her survival.

This, alas, is also precisely the way of the local media. And that is the media's greatest sin -- not, as Torn and others would have it, by, by getting in the way of the military, but by failing to track how Arroyo, step by evil step, is making the Philippines ungovernable.

I hope that, one day, Trillanes will be recognised as one of the early heroes who showed that something could in fact be done.

[torn]

Hi Cogs – A splendid rant, but surely you meant “take his case to the person”, since no more than that showed up to thank the new messiah for saving the country.

I don’t like the Arroyo administration either, but I don’t buy the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic of your comment. I might have voted for Trillanes back in May if I were on the electoral register, for many of the reasons you cite and because the Oakwood mutiny was to an extent vindicated a few months later by General Carlos Garcia’s arrest for unexplained wealth (presumably acquired through his position as head of military procurement). Needless to say, Garcia was not uncovered by the military or civil authorities here, but by US customs who wondered why his son was bringing $100,000 in cash into the country.

The Peninsula putsch is another matter altogether. I can’t for the life of me figure out what it was supposed to achieve, apart from putting Trillanes on the front page again. Even Trillanes seemed vague about his motives and that interview with him was simply cringe-making. In fact the decisive and successful government response left GMA’s stock higher than it was before.

If you really want to lay about you with gay abandon, why not visit the lair of the pro-GMA blogging community here:

http://celdrantours.blogspot.com/

[Ian Alvarez]

It's a circus with Trillanes acting like a clown. He acted like a small kid who came into a room and demanded something. Who doest he think he is? Gloria is here to stay! kaya for those who can't accept it, mamatay kayo sa inis!