Adventurism in the Military

I have a few minutes and I just want to blog about what I read on the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The article is titled Mutineers mull talk with Reds, eye Honasan for transition and the article can be found here.

If there is anything that summarizes the state of the country and the general immaturity of the Philippine populace, it can be read in the article referenced above. Power hungry sectors of the Philippine Military are are so confident of the alleged support of the population that they would openly talk about creating a Military Junta that will govern the country while they overhaul it to reflect what they believe is the one true way of governing the country.

DISGRUNTLED soldiers are open to negotiations with leftist groups and are eyeing fugitive former senator Gregorio Honasan to be a member of a transition council being prepared to replace President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an escaped mutineer said.

Disgruntled? That is the worst misspelling of adventurous that I have ever seen. Not only are these people talkative enough to transmit their moves, they are also willing to lie in bed with their traditional enemies so that they can truly serve our country! Since the left and the right express totally opposite views as to how the country must be governed I wonder how the difference will be smoothed out. From the business end of an AK-47 and an M-14 perhaps?

Furthermore,

"In our view, he [Honasan] has the ability to be a member of the transition council that we are establishing," he said. "We believe that he is fighting for genuine reforms."

I wonder what special ability Mr. Honasan has that makes him eligible for this junta .. aherm .. transition council? I wonder what makes anybody even eligible for this transition council! If I could venture a guess it would be

• A graduate of the Philippine Military Academy.
• Has a gun.
• Has control over people with guns.
• Can deploy even more guns if needed.
• The willingness to use guns to serve the country.

With idealist revolutionaries like these who needs rule of the people by the people for the people? Who needs elections? Who needs parliament or congress? Those things are encumbrances to effective governing of the country!

What frightens me is that they will get the support of a large portion of the country. People like

• Corazon Aquino --- whose family owns the feudal estate Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. The same estate that is the subject of legal proceedings for defaulting on loans. The same estate that will be split by a new highway that will run from Clark to Tarlac City. The same estate where tenant farmers are clamoring for the land reform that has been promised to them by law.
  

  This estate is in so much trouble that Cory Aquino is willing to be intimate with the very people who inflicted seven coup attempts on her administration in order to save it. Cory needs to save Hacienda Luisita and the replacement of Arroyo with a president more willing to listen to the reasonable pleas of the Cojuangco family is the first step.

• Loren Legarda. I used to admire Loren for her intelligence and supposed integrity but no more. Loren is the one politician in this country that has absolutely no principles. She was one of the senators that led the impeachment of Estrada. She was one of the senator-prosecutors that drove Mr Estrada away from office. The next day, Ms Loren was offered the Vice Presidential seat under FPJ --- a known ally of Estrada --- and she grabs it!
  

  Where are your principles Loren? You knew why FPJ ran for office. You knew what will become of Estrada once FPJ is in office and yet you still ran under Mr Estrada's political banner. Good thing you lost. I would prefer a presidency by Noli De Castro over a vice presidency by a two-faced unprincipled political genius like you!
  

• Ejercito family. Of course. This family will profit if GMA steps down. Who woulda known?
  
• ABS-CBN. The Lopez family is a family so powerful they think the President of the Republic should apologize to a mere reporter because the president has a private view of what the said reporter did. He bailed him out, okay? Its not illegal but its not ethical either.
  

  The Lopez family is also being investigated for unpaid taxes and over-pricing of electricity. If GMA falls, Meralco will be saved billions. What is political instability compared to an almost 50 Billion peso bill hanging over Meralco's head? If GMA goes, Meralco can breath easily. Who woulda known?
  

• The communists. Nobody wants to say communist anymore because it is supposed to be politically incorrect. What is wrong with the word communism if it is really communism? Stalin, Lenin, Marx and Kruschev didn't have any problems using the word! I call myself atheist despite the ugly connotations that word has on the God-fearing. But here in the Philippines, communism has lost so much credibility that communists prefer to be referred to as The Left. Yeah right! And calling Cuba socialist will have a salutary effect on Cuba that wasn't there when it was communist.
  

  The communists (I mean Left) want to gain power too -- just like the rest of the political spectrum. If GMA goes and the Left had a hand on it, they will be rewarded choice plums. I vote that Satur Ocampo be declared Secretary of Defense! Let's see how Mr. Disgruntled Soldier will handle that! It would be very interesting to see the fireworks fly.

My poor poor country. What will happen to you now?

A Short Rant on Suffering

I visited a blog by someone who was recently diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia. According to the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association website:

TN (Trigeminal Neuralgia) is a pain that is described as among the most acute known to mankind. TN produces excruciating, lightning strikes of facial pain, typically near the nose, lips, eyes or ears.

It must be a terrible pain to suffer from.

I don't usually make comments on comments made on other people's blogs but the the following comment on the blog activated my theoidiot allergy.

cat, whatever happens, just hold on to the thought that God would never give us anything that we couldn't possibly handle. And with today's medical advancements, even people with deadly diseases like AIDS live a long and normal life (ex. Magic Johnson).

This theoidiot is obviously trying to impart some wisdom here but what it is I cannot comprehend. As someone whose name I forgot once said, Nothing is more excruciating than listening to a bore who has absolutely nothing to say or words to that effect.

It also reminds me of an anecdote about Mother Teresa. Apparently, the so-called sainted Mother Teresa is a religious fanatic. She does not wish to employ pain killers nor the other implements of modern pharmaceutical science in the clinics that her order runs in the poor neighborhoods of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa is thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as ennobling experiences and a beautiful expression of affiliation with Jesus Christ and his ordeal on the cross. Hitchens reports that in a filmed interview Mother Teresa herself tells of a patient suffering unbearable pain from terminal cancer: With a smile, Mother Teresa told the camera what she told the patient: 'You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.' Apparently unaware that the response of the sufferer was a put-down, she freely related it: "Then please tell him to stop kissing me."

The excerpt above was taken from a bookreview here.

If God exists then he is a sadistic being who enjoys torturing people on the pretext that it ennobles them. Pain does not ennoble. Pain does not a saint make. We do not suffer pain gladly and the excruciating and unbearable pain of trigeminal neuralgia is entirely pointless because it confers neither evolutionary nor biological advantages to the sufferer.

Only theoidiots like Mother Teresa and the anonymous poster above would see pain as a gift from God.

Once, when Kriemh was diagnosed with an infection and was in pain, I told her not to trust god but to trust modern medicine instead. Unbeknownst to the commentor, he or she demonstrated essentially the same recommendation: Pain is a gift from God but there is modern medicine that will make the gift palatable. Aww, shucks!

If you are Cat and are reading this blog, please understand that I have nothing against you in posting this article. I once suffered great pain too and the comment simply enraged me for its blatant lie and patronizing tone. I hope you will get well soon, and at the cost of infuriating you admonish you, like Kriemh, to trust modern medicine, not God.

As for the commentor. I sincerely pray that your Lord Jesus Christ imparts the same gift to you. I also hope he kisses you while handing you his great gift.