Luis V. Teodoro: The Regime of Mockery

The latter does seem to be the logic behind the appointment, as illogical as it may seem to less crafty folk. In short: Esperon’s negotiating abilities, whatever they may be, would come into play only when, as the Arroyo regime has pledged, it has reduced the New People’s Army to insignificance, and forced the Moro Islamic Liberation Front into surrender.

In the meantime, Esperon wouldn’t be doing so badly, earning his keep as a peace adviser by adding his voice to those of the other hawks advising Mrs. Arroyo on how to best defeat social movements militarily. Reward enough, it would seem, for services rendered both during as well as post-2004.

A military man as peace adviser? A hawk for the dovish tasks of peace negotiations? It shouldn’t surprise anyone. The Arroyo regime of ironies and mockery has done as badly and even worse.

It’s put secretaries in the department of environment who have issued logging and mining permits as if they were going out of style, the better to assure the communities involved that the next floods will be worse than the most recent. It’s appointed secretaries of agriculture who can’t explain why the country’s rice production is so low it has to import rice in vast quantities.

It has a justice secretary whose concept of justice is so unabashedly political he didn’t see anything wrong in pro-active involvement in the defense of US Marine Corporal Daniel Smith and company. Much less does the same secretary see anything contrary to justice in persecuting those party list representatives with whose politics he doesn’t agree, no matter how often the same charges are made, dismissed, and again made only to be dismissed again.

Over the same regime presides a putative president who every now and then vows allegiance to free expression and claims this country to be human rights haven, even as demonstrators are beaten, journalists arrested while on the job, media franchises threatened with cancellation, community journalists killed with impunity, and activists assassinated and abducted.

It’s a national security regime disguised as a democracy, a reign of assassins cloaked in legal cloth. It’s a regime of mockery in which an Esperon for peace adviser makes as much sense as a Raul Gonzalez for justice secretary. (pinoypress.net)