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Ruffy Magbanua

THE humiliating failure  of Malacanang to act swiftly  on the Kidapawan  carnage mirrors the stupidity of the Aquino administration, now on its final stretch of ascendancy,  in dealing with crisis situations.

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The North Cotabato highway protest was a crisis reminiscent of the Hacienda Luisita massacre, Luneta hostage taking, Zamboanga siege,  the Mendiola killings, the Mamasapano clash,  the Yolanda devastation in Leyte, just to name a few,  where hundreds of lives were wasted, properties destroyed and most importantly, our  national pride shattered to pieces.

Indeed, the buck stops in Malacanang, and PNoy, no matter how much his apologists would try to defend him, gets the axe for his inaction to resolve the crisis.

As usual, the government’s failure to address the crisis is again in question here. And I think the main reason of the delayed response  to resolve the crisis was the pretentious  attitude of the local government to get into the bottom of the issue–as to why the protesting farmers, some of them  tagged as leftists, organized themselves and virtually barricaded  the Kidapawan-Davao national highway for four straights days before the police action that killed three farmers and wounded several hundreds.

Again, the arrogance and the   insensitivity of  the Aquino administration to the latest killings of the people whom it pledged to serve  come into play, and we cannot hold but to decry justice to the ineptitude of Malacanang in dealing with  the problem, fast and quick–in this case of the  hundreds of Cotabato peasants, their farms dried up because of prolonged drought, were just asking for food to eat.

True enough, an empty stomach knows no boundary of reason or the ability to act with civility. What comes first is to fill that crumbling stomach, such in the case of the hundreds of small farmers who manifested their  misery through protest action.

With the election campaign at its highest peak, the Cotabato incident is   another big blow to the administration candidates, pushing further down the ratings of Mar Roxas as LP standard presidential bearer and his partymates.

Mainstream and social media are  now agog with nagging comments on the Cotabato bloody highway assault,  calling PNoy’s infamous tagline “kayo ang boss” as pure lip service.

The failure of government to quickly respond to the Cotabato crisis was a good copy of the question raised by the late President Cory Aquino–“Who’s in charge here?”–not knowing pretty well that the uncalled remarks mirrored her incompetence as head  of state and commander-in-chief. Like mother, like son?

Granting without necessarily admitting that the Kidapawan protesters were indeed members of the New People’s Army as what police authorities have branded them, then this question irks the public’s  mind:  What comes first, food or bullets?

Now, where is matuwid na daan?

E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com

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