CHANGE

How do political changes occur? They occur in many ways -- we have elections and so can choose our leaders. Two, we draft and pass bills and make sure that they are implemented once they become laws. Three, petition the government to relieve officials, to make a government unit act more speedily, etcetera. Four, we conduct signature campaigns for whatever issue we deem very important in our community and national life. But the most important is that we can conduct a people power movement. 

The last movement is almost a political upheaval, an overhauling of the system of our government. Here, we need the cooperation of everyone, and if not the majority at least. That is what happened when we booted out Marcos as the dictator and all his family and cohorts. We did away with him in order to restore our dignity as a people, in order to restore our democratic rights which covertly and overtly denied us for 14 years. 

However, there are some things that we need to do away when conducting the movement also:

we need to transcend traditional beliefs that block our minds to absorb and think new ideas as well as immobilizie us to act.

What were the belief that we overcame? One, Marcos liked to be called Apo, which is a title given an older person as a sign of respect. The Apo Hiking Society came into the picture and Marcos' Apo title became a laughing and entertaining stock. 

Two, Marcos as president was undressed as a charlatan. He won the presidency by cheating in the elections and manipulating our country to suit his and his family's vested interests. He controlled the media in order to give him a favorable presentation all the time, to the point of choosing which pictures of Imelda, etc. should appear. His Department of Information, which Tatad headed was a dreadful unit of his government. 

Three, we learned how to distinguish between genuine peaceful political activists and radical ones. The latter chose to boycott the snap elections and so the people had to turn to the yellow crowd of Cory. Unfortunately, the yellow crowd could only plausibly restore the rights but failed to reconstruct our society later on as they had a taste of power, so that the poor and marginalized would be integrated in our economic and political developoment. 

However, when do we find that there is really a need for change already?

I think we felt it when we came to know that our elections, our right to choose our own leaders had been manipulated so much so that it became a horrible daily experience having to deal with Marcos and his military regime. The harsh realities of suppression and murders of young people who wanted change became so glaring that we had to get the help of the international community to help us propagandize about them.  However, our movement remained ours, and ours alone, not tainted by foreign intervention.

Our movement is worthwhile reliving for whatever help it can give other folks; however, the history of our democratic struggle now is being eroded by the extra judicial killing which now gives us a bad image internationally. 

I think that all Tok Hang should be stopped. The PNP could use legal methods to bring out drug pushers, addicts and drug lords into the open. They know those methods and we need not reiterate them. Let us respect the home as the last haven of everyone. I squirm every time I hear a drug-related incident ending in murder right inside the family's home. 

No, there should be more gentlemen and gentlewomen in the PNP who have respect for human life and the sanctity of the home.