Scanning the news on my cellphone about three days ago at the break of dawn, something jolted me. An icy feeling crept down my spine.
As if I was brought back to 1972 when Martial Law was declared. However, it did not result in a feeling that a similar declaration would be done by the incumbent President. What came back was how coldly calculating then President Marcos Sr. was in the prelude to Martial Law. Everything was meticulously planned from the arrest of opposition politicians just before the announcement of the declaration to the changes in government that immediately went on stream. Comparing how things were to Singapore’s Martial Law the other day, the latter is just a stupid joke.
The icy cold news was the call of the current President on his allies not to push through with the impeachment of VP Sarah. Ostensibly, because it will not improve a single Filipino’s life. It will just be a waste of time.
That was not a spur of the moment. It was coldly calculated. I was not surprised a bit. With Juan Ponce Enrile, the architect of Martial Law, as one of the presidential advisers and former Chief Justice Bersamin as his executive secretary, there was something eerie about the whole thing. There must be a grand plan.
What is the plan? I don’t know. But am quite sure about the result. The Marcos -Romualdez families will end up consolidating their political power over the nation.
It smacks of Mario Puzo’s “Godfather” who bided his time as he made sure of the safety of the members of his mafia family. Then in one swoop he hit hard. And all competing mafia dons’ corpses were found here and there.
The cold political calculation will bury all the cursing and tough guy verbal threats of the Dutertes.
Will it be good to the people? Concentration of political power in the hands a few never results in the good of the general populace.**