Sen. Robinhood Padilla filed a resolution to declare as “persona na grata” Australian Green Sen. Janet Rice for “unparliamentary” behavior for raising a placard mentioning Pres. Bongbong Marcos as a plunderer, as he was addressing the Australian Parliament.
How would the Australian government react to this call in the Senate? It looks like such stupidity will just
end up nowhere. If at all, perhaps the Australian nun Patricia (who was helping the IPs in Mindanao)
who was unceremoniously deported by VP Sara Duterte’s father during his incumbency as head-of-state
may just have uttered to herself, “Hohohum, another absurd decision by the anti-people Filipino
legislators.”
For the regular observers of the national scene, Sen. Robin Padilla’s action simply reflects the weird, if
not the simpleton kind of focus of our current public officials. Disastrously missing in their sight is their
key mandate of being statesmanlike and addressing critical issues that impact on the lives of the millions
of their countrymen dubbed as the voiceless “common tao” or the masses, in general.
Consider the March 22 panicky decision of fielding thousands of policemen, soldiers and security
personnel, not only in the Batasan area, but also in the route traversed by a contingent of Batangas
activists going to join the anti-Cha-Cha mass mobilization, as the dynasty-dominated House of
Representatives were in session. Haven’t the Uniteam Administration noticed that their fellow Filipinos
were simply exercising their right of freedoms of assembly and of speech, peacefully airing their views to
their representatives sitting in the House of Representatives? Wasn’t this another stupid decision by
government, especially considering that many past mobilizations were always started and characterized
by democratic open-minded dialogues between the activist leaders and LGU officials and police/military
officials?
Another stupid and anti-people decision and action made just this March 24, at about 8pm -- the
abduction, or probably the illegal arrest of two Environmental Rights Defenders in the City of San Carlos,
Pangasinan: Francisco “Eco” Dangla III and Axielle “Jak” Tiong were “savagely mauled, and dragged to a
waiting SUV,” according to witnesses and concerned citizens. When will the PNP solve this case?
The Filipino people deserve more intelligent pro-people legislators and public officials with the right
vision and mission of truly serving the people. They cannot tolerate public officials who cannot see that
their job, collectively, is to raise the standard of living of the millions of their fellowmen who compose
almost half of the more than 112 million Filipinos. Isn’t their urgent job now, to use their intelligence
and not appear stupid, and prove themselves to be pro-people and pro-bayan, is to provide “jobs for the
jobless” and to decide creatively soonest to bring about urgent economic recovery? Their consistent
focus should be, using the people’s money, “to build a just and humane society.”
#WeTakeAStand #OpinYon #ColumnbyBoniMacaranas #PoliticsIsLife