Our government’s folly

Butch Bagabuyo

“It (gaming) is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.” – Washington

EARLY in our humble life, the Jesuits at the Ateneo de Cagayan, now Xavier University-Ateneo, taught us to live in accordance with our mantra “Veritas Liberabit Vos.” Consequently, a good many Kagay-anons lived happily and without fear of telling the truth no matter how it hurts. Indeed, it was the slogan that made our place a proud (not hambuguero like Oscar S. Moreno) City of Golden Friendship. Precisely because Kagay anons were basically honest, all our leaders made sure that truth and posterity reigned supreme in our city almost in perpetuity. But, perhaps, because ours is a world of the finites, birth pains of a progressive city slowly showed its ugly marks. And before Kagay-anons knew it, virtues were conveniently disregarded in favor of becoming a booming metropolis.

Luckily for our city, the Jesuits, through their graduates, stood their ground and fought against the establishments of gambling dens.

The PDP-Laban led by its founder, former Senate President and Mayor of the City of Cagayan de Oro, Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, and its then longest serving Mayor Pablo “Ambing” Magtajas, went to the Supreme Court and established a precedent: gambling, by whatever sweet-sounding name and calling cannot use its national franchise and intrude into the life of Kagay-anons without city hall’s consent and approval.

But that was long ago!

PNoy’s much touted “Tuwid na daan” is actually a folly of the worst kind. To date, it is the only national administration that defies our national will. The national government keeps on making “press releases” of the country’s so-called most amazing rise in economy. But more and more Pinoys are starving to death by reason of  the anomalous “natuwad nga dalan” of selective justice and fastising economy in paper only and for their cronies: Kamag-anak Inc.  kabarilan, kaklase, and mga kaibigan. What is nauseating is the proliferation of gambling all over the archipelago spawned by debilitating greed and the culture of impunity.

Because our national government cares only for the few who are filthy rich and against the teeming millions of the unwashed and the unschooled, Mindanaoans and the rest of the poor elsewhere wallow in the quagmire of poverty.

Undoubtedly, PNoy, in the unholy alliance of “The Hyatt 10,” the holders of the people’s money and the shameless-hostage-takers of the presidency, are laughing their way to their respective banks, mostly abroad. But not for long.

Because God is good, despite its almost unlimited funds taken from our government coffers (Where else?), PNoy’s official candidate for President and all the candidates of the Liberal Party are not getting anywhere but down and nearing the bottom, the surveys “kuno” notwithstanding.

Encouraged by the stunning success of its opening salvo on Tuesday, 9th day of February, the three strategically located parallel voluntary organizations in our city supporting the Duterte-Cayetano tandem finalized last Wednesday at the Southwinds Hotel the El Salvador City – Tagoloan sorties on 15 February 2016.

Deeply concerned with the monstrous traffic that would be caused on Monday, 15th of February 2016 by the visit of the Duterte-Cayetano team, including their senatorial slate, the local organizing committee will implement the following measures:

• Upon arrival of the Duterte-Cayetano team at the Laguindingan airport, Mayor Duterte and Sen. Cayetano will immediately be taken by the choppers to the Tagoloan venue, a privately owned dome with a rather limited capacity. For this reason, the delegates from the various municipalities starting from Magsaysay all the way to Tagoloan are requested to come early and position themselves at their designated areas at the dome, and they are all requested to bring their own provisions, these sorties being unlike the traditional “hakot” system of the old.
• The caravan from the Laguindingan airport is limited to 15 vehicles only, five of which will carry the senatorial candidates and other members of the Duterte-Cayetano Team while only 10 vehicles will be allowed to join the caravan all the way up to the dome in Tagoloan.
• The rally, including the bring-your-own-lunch, will last for only two hours.
• At exactly, 2 pm, the Duterte-Cayetano tandem will be brought by the choppers to the El Salvador venue also with a very limited number of delegates from all the municipalities from the western part of Misamis Oriental and the cities of Marawi and Iligan.

As we have already written the other day, The Barog Pederal Mindanao- BPM-DC (Duterte-Cayetano) team will be organizing what we call as the autonomous cells within the 80 barangays of the City of Cagayan de Oro. And as we have already mentioned before, our group is composed of self-supporting “workhorses,” not commanders.  And, mind you, the BPM-DC are servants-leaders.

If only to ensure everyone knows what we will be doing from now on and until there is true freedom, democracy, equality for all in order to attain lasting peace and happiness, not wealth, here is the basic list of what, on our own (meaning, no solicitations of money from any of the candidates), we will do:

• Self-help empowering moves in conducting symposia in schools, universities and public markets on what is Federalism and why it is the best solution to the graft and corruptidden presidential form of governance – the principal cause of the greedy-elitist- hypocritical-government that ran our country-a-foul ever since elections have been held in 1935; and,
• We will never rely on what our country can do for us but on what we can do for our country and people (John F. Kennedy).
• •

“The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions and government.” – Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

During the opening salvo of the Duterte-Cayetano Team in Tondo, Manila, Duterte and Cayetano re-assured the nation that they would overhaul our 1987 Constitution and install a Federal-Parliamentary form of government.

This undeniable fact speak much, much louder than any lucrative trending business now going on in Imperial Manila.

Tsada, di ba?