Crisis in the PDP-Laban

Ben Contreras

WE all heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, the down to earth compliment ever given to Duterte by Sen. Miriam Defensor–that only Duterte has seriously done something to curb corruption. That alone made Duterte a winner.

And who won in the debate? I leave that to the people to judge.

In Divisoria, people slowly gathered to see their idol–people who were pinning their hope that their idol would bring genuine change in the country.

They brought their t-shirts, new and old, for free printing. They bought t-shirts to help in the fundaising. They devoted time, effort and money to promote their choice candidate. They paid for the generator to ensure continuity of their program at Divisoria. They paid the hotel bills of the singing group that came to offer talents free of charge. They brought food for others who can’t afford. And to top it all, they cleaned up the place after the program, a good start for change and discipline.

If this is true everywhere in the country, then it can be said who is going to be the next president of the country.

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Since Sen. Koko Pimentel is in the city, he might as well tell us who represents the PDP-Laban here. Something is telling us that there is a leadership crisis here. For the sake of unity, since it took the responsibility of adopting Duterte as their party candidate, the PDP-Laban hierarchy should put everything in place to avoid squabbles that may affect and compromise the strength of its presidential candidate.

The young Pimentel may not know it, but something is brewing that may explode on his face if taken for granted.

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Three decades or so ago, I missed the great night that happened in Divisoria. But although I was practically alone the following morning, I was in my motorcycle on Marcos Bridge, yelling “Marcos is gone” to whoever I met.

A euphoric nation was looking forward to a new dawn. Ninoy and Cory became bywords in every nook and cranny of the country. But that was supposed to be but didn’t.

Cory established a revolutionary government but continued to use the Executive Orders of a deposed dictator when she or we should have started from scratch.

Except for a few good points, nothing much has changed. Corruption persisted from mother to son and the past presidents in between.

For this reason alone, I find it irrelevant to celebrate People Power if only to find politicians grandstanding and talking about love of country but continue to loot our government coffers.

Corruption has siphoned off much of our government resources into the wrong pockets. Who was it who said that the people who voted for the corrupt ones are the ones who benefited from corruption?

We are only good at making nice statements, slogans, nationalistic music–all sound and empty words.