GUESTING at the ‘Meet the Press/Report to the Nation’ media forum of the National Press Club last Friday, May 21, 2021, Atty. Howie Calleja, one of the convenor of the new opposition ‘alliance,’ ‘1Sambayan’ (pronounced isang bayan), said their aim is for the country’s return to “good governance” and “democracy” under a “politics of inclusion.”
However, in the course of his elucidating on the “lofty aims” of their group’s slogans, two things have become clear: one, they only want a return to the old and already discredited brand of Philippine politics under the rule of the Liberal Party, the elite, the communists and other political dregs whose only achievement is the demonization of the past regime (such as that of Pres. Marcos and Pres. Gloria Arroyo) in order to hide their grand plan to once again loot the economy and the country’s resources for their own ends in cahoots with their imperial masters (read: the West and the local oligarchs).
Second, the way Calleja presented it, one can only arrive at the conclusion that theirs is not a politics of inclusion but a politics of exclusion—those who are not with their “ideas” are against them.
Indeed, the way Calleja disparaged Sen. Christopher ‘Bong’ Go and his achievements, the way he discredited the current administration (he mentioned “palpak na gobyernong Duterte” repeatedly as if it is part of our dictionary), gives one the sense that they actually disdain this government and are blind to what it has accomplished thus far.
If that is the way they view the current state of things with no appreciation to any good that has happened under the current leadership, how can that be a politics of inclusion?
And then there is ex-Sen. Antonio Trillanes, among those aspiring to be chosen as 1Sambayan presidential bet. How can he unite the county when his pronounced political “platform” rests on vendetta with his sole aim of putting Pres. Duterte behind bars?
In other words, far from uniting the country, they are determined to further torn it apart. After all, it is this core policy of divide and rule, the sowing of hatred, the throwing away of the people’s attention towards peripheral issues (like Sinophobia and US Imperialism) while they proceed to plunder the country’s wealth, which enabled them to rule the country since the illegal removal of Pres. Marcos in 1986—until Pres. Duterte became president in 2016.
Analyzing this group and stripped of their motherhood statements and rhetoric, 1Sambayan is an aggrupation of has-been and clueless political personalities and groups driven by blind ambition to regain power at any cost to ensure their political survival and make them once again feel “relevant.”
And yes, how can 1Sambayan be considered “democratic” when included in its fold are the front organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), a declared and confirmed terrorist organization that is now fighting for its own survival and political relevance?
Is this the kind of politics that we all want? That Filipinos truly yearn for? A return to the old politics of vendetta and deception?
But in the event 1Sambayan still managed to capture the national leadership come 2022, we are indeed a people that deserves to be damned.