Punchline
Yesterday, the KBL; today, Lakas-Kampi
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
The ugly head of contemptible traditional politics made itself more evident over the past few months, thanks to President Arroyo and her allies in Congress, in particular.
While farmers stood wearily and anxiously by the gates of the Batasan to press our congressmen to finally pass the pending bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, GMA’s allies in Congress would rather debate and discuss the possibility of amending the Constitution for a crack at extending her and their terms of office. And as if that was not enough display of insensitivity, the farmers were recently hosed down to force their evacuation from the Batasan complex so pangs of guilt would not hit the congressmen as they drive through the gates in their luxury vehicles.
And with the end of the 14th congress just 5 days away, the congressmen and local government executives affiliated with Lakas and Kampi showed no qualms at demonstrating the height of their impertinence and arrogance last Wednesday by going into an impromptu holiday mood after joining GMA in celebrating the unification of Lakas-Kampi CMD. They toasted and talked mindlessly about new prospects of staying in power no longer via Cha-Cha but through the Lakas-Kampi express train, paying no heed to the implacable farmers’ anguish that haunts them. They were one in the thought that the juicy sexcapades of the Katrina-Hayden saga are enough to keep pending legislation issues out of public’s mind while they plotted and partied.
How wrong they are.
We note with sadness that a number of our own officials in the province are with the cabal that wanted nothing else but a guaranteed continued stay in power. Alas, they, too, have not learned from the country’s contemporary political history, particularly what happened to the once monolithic political party Kilusan ng Bagong Lipunan (KBL) during the Marcos regime.
They forget that the motivation for the formation of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD is not without precedence; that the KBL was created to serve the same interests that they advocate today. KBL partied daily like it would stay in power forever regardless of what they did or didn’t do for the people yet the surviving KBL wards will attest today how wrong they were how fast the cookie crumbled soon as the Marcoses were shooed out in February 1986 by the people they were mandated to serve but chose to ignore.
Given what GMA and her cohorts have done to the country, Lakas-Kampi is destined to suffer the fate of the once monstrous KBL. Wanna bet?
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THE SAVING GRACES. While House Speaker Prospero Nograles is to blame squarely for the failure of the House to pass the CARP extension with reforms bill, GMA cannot escape culpability. It was she who foisted the Cha-Cha with promises of political largesse on the landlords and now the unification of Lakas-Kampi with promises of bottomless campaign kitty for loyalists.
If there is anything that the Lakas-Kampi party promises, it is more of apathy and empty promises. GMA should thank her stars that there are indeed still some elected officials from Pangasinan in her doomed party who can still give her a semblance of credibility, among them Health Sec. Pingkoy Duque, Usec Bebot Villar, Guv Spines and Rep. Rachel Arenas, to name a few.
I know I will rue the day these officials stop serving all because GMA is gone and her Lakas-Kampi has fallen by the wayside.
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GREEN BADGE OF HONOR. Here’s a ‘heads up’ to Guv Spines (as DENR’s special rep) and the mayors.
In case they failed to take note last May, President Arroyo imposed another deadline on local chief executives to comply with Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
She noted a low rate of compliance and she wants to see at least 50 percent of local government units complying with the law by June (?) next year. Whether that means she’ll still be around to charge the local execs for infidelity to their mandate remains to be seen but one thing is certain – it’s an opportunity for our officials to be among the first in the country to wear the green badge of honor in the war vs. a ruinous climate change.
The ill effects of climate change are already with us, and the country desperately needs heroes with a clear vision of how environment can be preserved and protected via good governance, to lead the counter-attack!
Guv Spines, say you will lead it. Also, it’s time to call in DENR Usec. Eli Quinto, a Dagupeño, to lend himself officially and his own network to this gargantuan task.
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