There would be no need for an anti-terrorism law. What every person or sector criticizing the government wants is social justice. The main obstacle to achieving that is corruption. It had always been swept under the rag, but could not be done anymore with the surfacing of billions of pesos being filched from government coffers.
Everybody now knows about how the billions and billions of Philhealth funds went right into the pockets of its corrupt officials and their cohorts in the private sector. And that is just one of hundreds and hundreds of government agencies.
Talk about government contracts and the term that goes along with it is SOP—or grease money. It has become known to everybody, even to toddlers. It appears that the last ones to know about it are government officials. Because they are the biggest part of the corruption. Such that even the private sector, in order to survive, has to go along with a lot of corrupt practices in transactions involving government.
As the President joked before delivering his SONA in Congress that had as guests most of the important people in government, that if the building collapsed and killed everybody inside it, there would be no more corruption in this country, or that it would by-and-large vanish. How true, how true.
Another sad reality is those from the left leaning groups who had been calling for reforms when given the chance to occupy powerful positions in government turned out to be as corrupt. This was true from the time of Tita Cory all the way to the present, from the national level down to the smallest local government units. They started swaggering around, with the motto— “make money while the sun shines.”
Even those (from the left) who got elected into positions had since shown their true colors. That they had also clay feet, if not dirtier.
So for real change, the anti-corruption spirit must be internalized by most individuals in this country. But that is easier achieved if change started from the top. While most people are now cynical about that, or of the seriousness of government’s anti-corruption drive, those in power have the golden opportunity to start the ball rolling **