Hypocrite!
Pres. Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo’s support for the campaign for release of Burmese freedom fighter. Aung San Suu Kyi lacks credibility to the point of being hypocritical Given that she herself is behind the
continuing persecution of the progressive lawmakers of Bayan Muna, Anakpawis
and Gabriela Women’s Party, as well as the continuing detention on false
rebellion charges of Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran. Her push for the full and
widespread implementation of Oplan
Bantay Laya and Oplan Bantay Laya II is also behind the persecution and
massacre of innocent civilians suspected
of being members of armed revolutionary groups.
How
can she even begin to support the call for release of a democracy and freedom
fighter when right in her own backyard she is keeping a 74-year old veteran of
the militant labor movement and an acknowledged leader of the progressive bloc
of lawmakers incarcerated on false charges of sedition and rebellion? Her own government and
the free reign it has given to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to
terrorize and kill civilians sympathetic to activist causes deserves to be
condemned as any other repressive regime and dictatorship in the world today.
Rep.
Beltran is already nearing his first
year of incarceration on February 25. None of the courts where Ka Bel’s case is
being heard has responded positively to the arguments laid down by Ka Bel and
his lawyers proving his innocence.
We
have reason to believe that President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo herself is adamantly against Ka Bel’s release, and even
without the prodding of her most twisted advisers led by justice secretary Raul Gonzalez and national
security chief Norberto Gonzales she insists on keeping Ka Bel out of
circulation by keeping him detained.
Arroyo hasn’t the least credibility to express
even mere sympathy for Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people’s struggle to bring
democracy to their country. Under her leadership, Mrs. Arroyo has plunged the
country back to the days of martial law where political activists and human
rights advocates were hunted down and killed by paramilitary and military
elements.
—-
Gad. It’s only Monday but it already feels like Friday. Reading the papers accelerates one’s aging process and it’s not good. Maybe the real secret to beauty of all those socialites and upper class people is simple: they don’t read the papers and they don’t keep up with political or economic current events, and they stick to the lifestyle and society sections.
I really have to go and run to Quiapo and buy more of those pirated DVDs. I could use more cartoon feature-films and those old Three Stooges clips.
The other night my sister Majalla and I saw Monty Python’s last full-length ‘The Meaning of Life’ and it depressed the hell out of me. For once I didn’t see much humor in the crazy troupe’s work. Or maybe I simply wasn’t in the mood. I remember laughing only at the skits that had the Every Sperm in Precious song and that cool one about the universe is constantly expanding (we are fans of Eric Idle), but the rest of the skits gave me a headache and made me sad.
