The tragedy of a distrusted leadership

By Ellen Tordesillas

The first text message I got yesterday morning was from a friend who forwarded a report from his friend in Cotabato City about a bomb that exploded in front of the Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral in that city.

News reports later said that four were killed while some 50 people were injured. Three of the fatalities were identified namely Ruby Ramirez, 43, of Philippine Trade, Barangay Bulalo in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, and owner of the lechon house where the bomb was planted; Prince Salem Cang Diaz, grand son of Patricio Diaz, former editor-in-chief of The Mindanao Cross, a local paper based in Cotabato City; Paulo Kahar.

Presidential Adviser for Mindanao Jess Dureza said “This is not an isolated case” referring to a series of bombings the past weeks. He called yesterday’s grim incident “murderous act of insanity” and “cowardly act of treachery and violence.”

On June 29, an improvised device exploded by a roadside in Maguindanao, killing two men having coffee in a nearby coffee shop and wounding eight others. On June 20, two grenades exploded at a fiesta celebration in Maasim, Sarangani, killing one person and hurting 32 others.

In Quezon City, on June 28, an improvised device went off at the Office of the Ombudsman compound. The next day, a package containing an improvised explosive was found on the grounds of the Department of Agriculture.

Dureza said that the bomb fragments in yesterday’s explosion were similar to those that found in the recent bombings, an indication that they were the handiwork of the same group of people.

Who could that group of people be?

AFP Spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner points to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) saying explosion in populated areas is an act of terrorism and bears the signature of the SOG (special operations group) ng MILF.”

There are also talk that it’s the handiwork of a faction in the Arroyo administration that wants to wrest control of the government before she fades away or immobilized for one reason or another.

This is problem if you have a leader distrusted by the majority of the population. People are ready to people the most abominable plan attributed to Arroyo because she has a track record of committing dastardly acts never before dared by other presidents, not even Ferdinand Marcos.

Who would ever believe that she could attempt the large scale and brazen subversion of the will of the people in the 2004 elections, from the diversion of public funds to her campaign kitty, to vote buying, to tampering of elections results using the military, to the manufacturing of fake election returns that were substituted to the genuine ERs stored in the Batasan secured by the Philippine National Police Special Action Force.

But she did it. The crime did not stop there because the cover-up continued with buying off members of the House of Representatives to kill the impeachment complaints against her and paying off military officials who cooperated in the cheating with promotions and cushy government positions upon retirement, and giving Comelec officials lucrative government business contracts as payoffs.

It’s easy for many of the Filipino people to believe that Gloria Arroyo will do anything to stay in power including creating mayhem.

 

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