The truth is, I've lately been too busy watching
PBB Teen Edition Plus that I almost forgot to follow the news, or the lack thereof.
I've been so in tuned with the
ZTE-NBN scam three weeks ago that I refuse to believe it will all come to naught. But, the
ruling of the SC in favor of Romulo Neri's use of executive privilege and the unfortunate
ailing of former President Corazon Aquino may prove to be the largest hindrance (minus the
CBCP's cowardly decision to not demand for the President's ouster) in the public's quest for truth and accountability. I, perhaps, have written and commented too much on this topic that I sometimes have this nagging voice behind my head that questions my purpose.
Yet, whenever I see a blind man or the street children or old people knocking on car windows, I see the kind of society where my kids will someday run around. I see the kind of values that my kids, in the future, will inherit. I see my 8-year-old cousin, loudly playing his
Tekken 5, and fear that he might see this country as I see it now--hopeless.
And somehow, I know, it cannot be this way forever. There has got to be something we can do, as Filipinos, to not lose the faith we have in ourselves and the indomnitable spirit we are most famous for.
The ZTE scandal is by far the most amazingly brazen kind of corruption (in monetary terms) done to us in recent years but, in fact, the
most despicable act of stealing happened when PGMA called
Garci on those fateful days of May 2004.
It is not only plundering Juan dela Cruz of his hard-earned money but it is robbing this nation of its right to choose its leader. It is stealing, in the worst possible way. It is an insult; a connotation that we cannot be trusted to choose our president, to believe on who we want to put our votes on.
The day she conceived that plan is the day she lost all moral grounds to rule this country.
The moment she dialed that number is the moment she kicked this nation's well-earned democracy to dust.
"Hello, Garci" is the root of all evil, no, it is the spawn of the devil (Arroyo being, perhaps, the devil herself). The ZTE scam is nothing compared to it. The robbing of our right to suffrage is the real issue; the real deal, as they call it.
We don't call this government democratic for nothing. It has got to stand for something we can all be proud of.
And that is where we, the generation of e-mails, chats, and blogs, should come in. What we cannot say in rallies, we can shout through our well-thought-of usernames. What we cannot publish on newspapers, we scream it through webpages.
Bombard the internet with the issues raging within this society, I don't care. The world wide web has enough bytes and addresses for us to tell the world how we, as ordinary citizens, condemn the corruption and lost of morality that is happening right under our noses. We cannot let them think we are letting this happen.
For letting the whole world think and see how apathetic this once courageous nation was, is letting them believe they can trample on our rights and throw it to our faces.
