Disgruntled
forces surface, say ‘crucial decision’ made
ROU
SAYS NOYNOY REGIME ‘WEAK, CORRUPT, INSENSITIVE’
Signs
of unrest have again manifested in the military ranks as a group
which called itself the Reformist Officers United (ROU) issued a
manifesto yesterday declaring a stand to “save the country from
further ruin and continue the unfinished revolution of our
forefathers, the true nationalists of the 1896 Philippine
Revolution.”
The
manifesto, called an “Article of Faith,” carried the signatures
of representatives from all the military commands, the Philippine
Army, the Philippine Air Force, the Philippine Navy, the Philippine
Marines and the Presidential Security Guard, and civilian security
agencies Philippine National Police, Coast Guard and the National
Bureau of Investigation. The names in the manifesto, however, are all
likely pseudonyms.
The ROU said it reached a “crucial decision,”
which it did not state clearly, after many of its supposed members
attended the recent rally at the Luneta Park or the Million People
March on Aug. 26.
The
decision was arrived at “after much contemplation of the political,
social, economic and national security situations that turned from
bad to worse, after we have vetted our organization, purged its ranks
of opportunists and fake nationalists and after we have consulted
some of our elders in the military, legal profession, farmers and
those from the business, church, academe, labor and civil society
groups.”
“Rest
assured, together we will win this battle if possible with less
bloodshed,” the ROU said in the manifesto.
“We are very much
aware of the colonial and neo-colonial circumstances which have
denied us the chance to discover our national self and to establish
our identity and discover how much our dignity is really worth,” it
stated.
The group added that the government and many of the
country’s leaders have been “weak, corrupt, venal, insensitive
and self-serving.”
As
a result, foreign powers in the name of friendship and business
partnership have interfered in our affairs with impunity,
manipulating us, playing with our lives, our country and our destiny,
the ROU added.
The
group was clearly critical of the administration of President Aquino
saying that his government “is no different from his mother’s
regime, characterized by callous shamelessness propped up by endless
popularity surveys.”
It added that the Aquino administration
stages spurious public shows of piety and compassion.
“It goes
through the motions of apologizing for numerous blunders in public
yet committed the unforgivable sin of blasphemy to shield its
depravity,” the group said.
It
described the Aquino administration as being in the shameful
tradition of the Makabebes, who betrayed the Philippine Revolution of
1896, and the even more notorious Makapilis who sent many Filipinos
to their death (in World War II).
“Pnoy’s
government has repeatedly frustrated the honest aspirations of our
people by offering its fanciful and deceitful brand of democracy,
economy and political lifestyle to unscrupulous foreigners and
appealing directly for their intervention to save it from the wrath
of long-suffering populace with legitimate grievances,” the ROU
added.
The group added Aquino has been deceiving the armed forces
into “fighting its battles of self-aggrandizement while undermining
the military at every turn. It tells its armed service to fight
terrorism without credible laws to protect them and the people.”
“Many
of our men have already died of loss of blood fighting a war they do
not even understand,” the group added.
It said occasionally,
Aquino throws the military a bone to chew on, like guard dogs to be
placated from hunger and reject.
“More
than 70,000 of our men in uniform are living as squatters in the
urban centers as well as in the countryside,” it added.
The
Aquino administration has reduced the once-proud military and police
organization into a private security force, dedicated to perpetuate
its status quo.
The group added that a Gestapo-like counter
intelligence organization is being maintained by the government “not
to spy on the real enemies of the State but to spy endlessly on the
office corps, rank-and-file, their families and other innocent
targets.”
“From
the first day, Pnoy, using useless advocacy of Matuwid na Daan, has
actually steered by one direction alone, that of private gains and
mindless arrogance,” the ROU added.
For more than three long,
unhappy years (Aquino) has drifted with neither will nor ability to
govern, muddling through all our national crises, setting a record of
corruptions and plunder, incompetence and clumsiness, it said.
The
solutions offered “have been short-sighted, meaningless palliatives
and rhetorics that leave the people more frustrated than ever.”
The
ROU said the Aquino administration excelled in only two things: the
enrichment of its clique and self-congratulations.
“What is more
unconscionable is that (Aquino) even lionized Janet Lim-Napoles, who
stole public funds and enriched herself and unscrupulous politicians.
She cannot deny this because there are witnesses and highly
incriminating pieces of evidence that will send them to jail the rest
of their lives. This is not the right time to read a bill of
particular. That will come later,” it added.
The
group said that only a few days ago while the political crisis was
evolving, (Aquino) apologized to the nation and appealed to the
public to support his presidency and the rule of law.
“His
conscience has become so compartmentalized he does not realize that
the very men and women he asked for help were the same men and women
victimized by his government’s corruption, plunder, arrogance and
incompetence,” it said.
Daily,
the public “contend with (Aquino’s) mismanagement, extravagance,
arrogance and sexual escapades, it claimed.
“They suffer the
high prices and the low wages. They suffer the scarcity of jobs. They
suffer the absence of transportation, water shortage and high fuel
prices. They suffer the breakdown of law and order, moral decay and
endless salvaging,” it added.
The group also lamented that the
Aquino regime has the gall to ask for help from the very people they
continued to deprive of their rights and their dignity.
“Pnoy
even asked the men in uniform to die for his government and his brand
of illiberal democracy. But will they, these people on whose tongues
linger the acrid tastes of disillusion, betrayal and greed?,” it
added
The ROU said it has “allies in the civilian sectors” and
will offer the country, “not the tarnished version of EDSA 1986,
cheapened and exploited beyond recognition, but the revolutionary
spirit of 1896 and its noble dream, a dream filled with a fierce
yearning for change: true independence, a sovereign nation, a just
and wise government, genuine nationalism, respect for the rule of
law, freedom in its best sense and reconciliation.”
“In
short, genuine democracy as the Filipino revolutionaries of 1896
installed but only fleetingly enjoyed before decades of subjugation,
tyranny and pretense that saw our resources exploited and our values
warped and perverted,” the group said.
It called on “friends
and guests from foreign lands” who the group said it gives respects
to their “sovereignty, culture, individuality and business
interests.”
“We implore you in the name of our country not to
interfere anymore with our internal affairs,” it said.
It
also appealed to media “to be fair and responsible in your
reporting.”
“We will not hesitate to fight fire with fire those
who will stand in our way and undermine our determination to protect
the State and to create a just, wise, efficient and stable society
throughout the land,” the group warned.
It said that its members
will remain anonymous, for the meantime, “but in time we will get
to know with one another as some of our forces are still busy
gathering intelligence information, infiltrating centers of power of
the Aquino Government and carefully assessing its loyal forces on the
basis of their morale, command system, fighting capability,
intelligence and materiel supplies.”
It
said that since the 1986 EDSA Revolution, the Filipino masses “still
huddled in their hovels, exploited, hungry and dispossessed. Our
bureaucracy is corrupt and inefficient.”
“There is systems
failure everywhere. The entire country is deregulated in favor of the
elite and their crook foreign partners. Prices of basic commodities
keep on rising while workers’ wages remain the same,” it added.
The group also said there is no peace and order. “The simplest
public services cannot be delivered. Our military is demoralized and
shot through with politics. Our judicial system does not work. The
guilty go free; the innocent are framed.”
The
ROU said the country’s strength is vitiated by corruption, plunder
and ignorance in high places. “When we protest, the government
responds with arrogance and brutality. Our elections are farces,
contests of force and money, or sleight-of-hand spewed by computers
and automated machines,” it added.
http://www.tribune.net.ph/index.php/headlines/item/19082-disgruntled-forces-surface-say-crucial-decision-made
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