On Ferdinand Marcos, Osama Bin Laden, John Paul II, Laperal Anarchy

Why Marcos Should Not Be Buried At Heroes Cemetery

Our actions live on after we die, like the ripples on a lake after the pebble we have thrown has disappeared beneath the surface. The regime of the late President Ferdinand Marcos systematically erased the our people’s inalienable human rights and democratic way of life.

Martial Law has murdered thousands of men and women from all walks of all life, and destroyed the lives of countless families.

Marcos has lost the moral right to be buried at the Heroes Cemetery. The nation may forgive the abomination, but it should never forget the consequences of those actions.

Absolute power corrupted him and almost destroyed our republic. If we let Marcos be buried  alongside true heroes who gave their last full measure of devotion in defense of democracy, then we show the world that we Filipinos do not deserve democracy, that we do not deserve justice, that we do not deserve respect.

Pure Evil

A sane mind cannot begin to fathom the psychological inhumanity and religious depravity of terrorists. Osama bin Laden is now dead, and that is a blessing to the a world that still value the sanctity of life.

But as a Filipino, I’m greatly ashamed when a group of sympathizers from Quiapo, the mecca of pirated DVDs and software  in downtown Manila, actually held a memorial service and tried to attack the U.S. Embassy.

The billion dollar piracy industry in the country, it is an open secret, is the major source of local  funding for terrorist activities in Mindanao. What happened in Pakistan should happen here: the governments of the Philippines and the United States can join forces to obliterate the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah. It’s time to instill fear in their cold-blooded souls by giving them a taste of their own evil fundamentalism

Why We Remain Poor

A uniquely Filipino phenomenon escalated the violence at the Laperal compound in Guadalupe in Makati last week, with the illegal residents defying the authorities with knives, stones, other improvised deadly weapons – even their own excrement.

They seriously wounded several innocent civilians, including ABS-CBN reported Nico Bawa – even though they’ve already been given financial assistance, subsidized housing and time to relocate.

We romanticize everything, give it an aura of something that exists only in our imagination. We’d rather be politically correct than honest. That is the human condition. People look at a child and see innocence, reduced to begging even though the child was conditioned to depend on dole-outs, having been raised to believe that the world owes them.

It’s just like those street children who bug you for coins – and then curse you if you refuse to give. Then they would arrogantly walk away in search for the next naive bleeding heart.

The urban poor, we deluded ourselves, are victims of a greedy society, forced to live in hovels. We ignore what we know all along – that they choose to rent there, and they keep coming back even if they have been given houses by the government.

It’s because of this the-world-owes-me mentality why they force themselves into lands that belong to others, why they belive that their self-proclaimed poverty sets above the law, and why we have never achieved First World status and instead degenerated into a nation of squatters.

The Saint

John Paul II changed the course of history with his crucial role in the dismantling  of the USSR. I have always deeply admired his principled stand against communism. His influence as a leader revered around the world led to the liberation of those nations behind the Iron Curtain and saved the lives of millions in Eastern Europe. I’m writing an essay that will serve as a timeless tribute to this miracle man who was just beatified, the last step to being a saint. Watch out for it.

This week’s featured Filipino artists:

JerichoRosales

Jhake Vargas