Sunday, May 19, 2013

We haven’t learned our lesson


By Rod Kapunan
Before the election, I made a fearless prediction that the senatorial candidates of the administration would win eight out of the 12 seats.  I was wrong because the swamping was consummate in favor of 9-3.  For the local positions, it is predicted that more than 70 percent of their candidates are expected to win.  All in all, the “overwhelming victory” of the administration’s bets was seen as a “vote of confidence” for PNoy.   Even the vigorous campaign made by the Catholic Church to junk the so-called “Team Patay” candidates failed to make a dent.  Many nonetheless  obtained respectable rankings.
To begin with, President Aquino is the only President ever elected to issue policy statements almost equivocally affirming his allegiance to Uncle Sam.  Like the Arroyo government, the PNoy administration has acceded  to the demand of the US and its Western allies to enact laws that would suit more of their interest than of this country, like those pertaining the further  liberalization of foreign investments, strict observance of the patents and copyright laws, in upgrading the anti-money laundering law, accelerating the privatization of the strategic industries, and many more.  If there remains an issue that needs to be resolved, it is on how they could proceed to amend the Constitution to remove the remaining obstacles of foreign control.
It is for this why elections in this country have drastically changed.  Before, candidates sought to show us that they were  educationally and mentally fit as well as patriotic. They talk more on how to protect the interest of this country having in mind extricating our people from poverty.
Now, an election is a rat race of who from among our local candidates is the most trusted lackey.  It is for this reason why many  consider election in this country a farce, and a big joke for those still daydreaming that change could happen.  Election is being blatantly manipulated by the elite using their various machineries to condition and control the minds of our people often conniving with their foreign brokers to ensure that only trusted lackeys are elected.
To be sure, if candidates cheat against their rival, such is a likely possibility, although not legal.   After all, there is no substitute for victory, and that was purely internal to us. But when they use their  various machineries and connive with a foreign power to ensure  the  election certain candidates, then it is wholly a different story.   Worse, the race  to control the government is no longer confined to controlling the occupant in Malacañang, but also in having the required number votes in Congress to ensure the passage of laws handed to these elected minions for legislation.  There now exists a tightly-knit conspiracy between our local officials and their foreign brokers to subvert the mandate of our people.
We cannot complain because they have succeeded in conditioning the minds of our people that their  candidates are likely to win.  Anybody who dares to participate, but is not certified as a lackey, is looked upon like as modern-day Don Quixote and even treated as some kind of a nut.  This kind of Pavlovian mental conditioning is not difficult to discern.  The net result is that once this conditioning seeps into their mind, they could only resign and accept their fate  because they have no way of  verifying how they were manipulated to vote for certain candidates.
It must be recalled that when Noynoy Aquino ran for Congress in Tarlac, he almost lost in that race.  When he ran for the Senate, despite the fact that he has not accomplished anything as the lawmaker for his province, he landed number five.   Surprisingly, when he was groomed the standard bearer of the Liberal Party for the post he now occupies, the two leading poll surveys, the Social Weather Stations and the Pulse Asia, gave him an unbelievable popularity rating  of 64 percent, a rating no candidate for president has ever obtained, and for a man who never even thought he  would become president.
That rating conveyed an ominous  sign  he was programmed to become president of this wayward republic.  The mainstream media, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star, did their share to  paint a glossy picture of him as the most promising candidate.  The mainstream radio and television network led by ABS-CBA, GMA-7 and ABC 5 took turns in trumpeting him as the man to beat despite the leak about his mental unfitness and slothful performance as congressman.    Again, just before the election, SWS and Pulse Asia reiterated their survey about his enormous popularity rating, short of saying people were raving mad to vote for him.
So, on election day, the Commission on Elections finalized what has long been anticipated.  There was no way an ordinary voter could  contest the result.  The same strategy was repeated in the just concluded election with added features of presenting his administration as one that has “accomplished” much for this country.  The foreign controlled Standard & Poor’s increased the country’s credit rating from BB+ to BBB-, with many of us not knowing how it directly affects our lives.  They also gave his administration what it dubbed as a stellar GDP growth rate of 6.6 percent for 2012.
Notably, when our lawmakers acceded to the demand that we computerize our election system,   we practically  gave the Comelec a free hand and a license to cheat us before our very own eyes because the computerization of the election and counting removed from us whatever evidence we have as basis for our complaint to prove we were cheated. The precinct count optical scan machines, other than having been questioned for being defective and tampered, remain in the hands and of  the Comelec and of its foreign agent, Smartmatic.  Our people are practically holding on to nothing.
All these brings forth the sordid truth that henceforth all elections in the country will be predetermined  to candidates who have manifested their subservience to foreign interest.
rpkapunan@gmail.com

No comments: