Another opinion for another People Power

From Neal Cruz

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IF YOU SEE MASSIVE CHEATING IN NEXT Monday’s elections, what would you do? Would you sit back, fold your hands and do nothing as a prince of the Church has suggested? No, it is your duty to protest, to show that you will not take the cheating sitting down. It is your duty to see to it that truth and justice be done. It is your duty to join another people power if one is called.

Doing nothing is not only irresponsible, it is cowardly. It is being afraid to do what is right. It is closing your eyes to injustice. [Exactly my point!]

But there are legal remedies, said Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales.

What legal remedies? The Commission on Elections? The Supreme Court? The Presidential Electoral Tribunal?

We have already seen that these agencies are not only very slow but are no longer independent. Even assuming that they consider the “legal remedies,” the presidential term may already be over by the time they come up with a decision. Look at the plunder cases against the Marcoses, the terms of four presidents are already over but they are still far from over. At the rate the courts and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) are going, Imelda Marcos’s congressional terms, including two reelections, will be over by the time the cases against her are decided. Justice delayed is justice denied, and justice is being denied the people.

Had the people not followed Jaime Cardinal Sin’s call for People Power in l986, we would still be reeling under the dictatorship of the Marcoses, and Cory Aquino could not have been President. If People Power was correct under Cardinal Sin, why is it not correct under Cardinal Rosales? [Dictators and opportunists both in politics, in school, and in companies gain their power and influence from people who do nothing in the face of evil!  It happens even within the corporate world...even in our own homes.  Remember that!]

People Power, where we ousted a dictator without a shot being fired, was the greatest glory the Filipinos ever achieved. It earned for the Philippines the admiration of the world. Many countries under the yoke of dictators made it their model for their own peaceful revolutions. Now a prince of the Church whose duty it is to look after his flock, to see to it that truth and justice be done to them, does not want another People Power. How times have changed.  [Personally, I think he is to be blamed why the Arroyos and their cohorts are running this country like their own piggy bank.  But that is just me.]


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"The pointed tip of the bishop's crozier symbolizes the obligation of the prelate to goad the spiritually lazy; the crook at the top, his obligation to draw back those who stray from the faith; and the staff itself his obligation to stand as a firm support for the faithful."

See why I miss Cardinal Sin?