Pinoys’ current fight for ‘independence’

By Gerry Garcia

MANY thinking Pinoys today, especially those immersed in the study of their country’s history, think they, through their immediate ancestors, had also gone through and experienced a “government run like heaven by Americans” which is a far cry from the kind we have today — a “government run like hell by Filipinos”.

They obviously were referring to the  nearly three decades of growth and experience  in self-rule under the  American administration which were climaxed in 1935 with the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth and the subsequent granting of independence 10 years later on July 4, 1946.

These thirty years of American-steered development in self-rule were in stark contrast to the almost 3 centuries of Spanish domination where Filipinos’ insurrection against social and political injustice had become a struggle for outright independence from Spain.

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Today, sixty years after the country had been granted independence in 1946 as promised in the Tydings-McDuffie Law almost after the end of World War II, we find ourselves waging another war for independence. We’re helplessly caught, it seems, in the grip of a “government run like hell by Filipinos” every one of whom wants to be President by hook or by crook. For personal aggrandizement, nothing more.

That’s why anybody can run for President, as long as he or she has the money or the popularity of a celebrity, like a screen clown or a movie macho. Latest movie idol about to be hoisted on the shoulders of moneyed or influential supporters from the Opposition is Richard “Goma” Gomez who says he has the backing of still detainee but none-the-less still billionaire Erap Estrada.

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Next on the line most probably is boxing icon Manny “Pacman” Paquiao, especially if and when he demolishes Mexican Morales in the incoming mid-year bout in America. Although we have our fingers crossed Manny “Pacman” will cause Morales to hit the floor, we’re also hoping he will not be prey to tantalizing tongue-in-check offers from ambitious tradpol supporters.

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