The Coup Plot Bogey: A Tail Wagging The Dog Episode

Written on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am | by Ding G. Gagelonia

President Gloria Macapagal Arrroyo returned from her trip to the US just a week ago and to her credit immediately went straight to work trying to show the concern of the government of the day for the victims of typhoon Fengshen. She even went to the beach of San Drnando Romblon to gaze at the overturned wreck of MV Princess of the Stars just 100 meter away, with the lingering stench of dead bodies still in the air.

And now we are hearing the military and police playing pingpong about the supposed ‘brand new’ coup plot starring former Marcos-era assemblyman Homobono Adaza engaging in a Philippine-vintage ‘thoughtcrime’ straight out of George Orwell’s ‘1984′.

But hey, we’re in 2008 with a little over 2 years before the next presidential elections!

Is there anyone playing us for April Fools in July?

Or is the coup plot bogey being foisted on Mrs. Arroyo herself by malcontents who feel they’d been left out in the regular round of budgetary pats-on-the-back or are short on their self-assigned quota of proceeds from ‘conversions’ of field supplies intended for our fighting men?

These all-too-obvious maneuvers no longer wash with most Filipinos well aware thar any approaching electoral exercise pump-primes political machineries with the new batches of would-be lawmakers and local officials all salivating to be anointed by well heeled political and religious patrons.

Forewarned is forearmed. Let’s not allow the tail to wag the dog.

No tags for this post.
Add to del.icio.us | Digg this! | Yahoo MyWeb | Google Bookmark It! | Stumble It!
About The Author: Ding G. Gagelonia is a journalist of some 30 years, having worked in both radio and TV news and public affairs since his teens. Ding Gagelonia now writes independently and does corporate communications consulting. He has two kids, Felice and Luis. His journalist blog is at midfield.wordpress.com

Filed Under Politics

Related Entries:

Comments

3 Responses to “The Coup Plot Bogey: A Tail Wagging The Dog Episode”

  1. PSImeon on July 5th, 2008 11:59 am

    Yes Ding, people look forward to elections. Not only because it is their raw, ‘unadulterated’ expression of representative democracy, but also because elections provide a cleansing effect.

    Not to mention the cash and opportunities that the political exercise bring. Everybody happy: the people, politicians, bureacracy, PR and ad agencies, etc. Elections pum prime the economy.

    I’ll call the alleged ‘coup plots’ another name: too late the hero.

  2. Ding G. Gagelonia on July 5th, 2008 2:04 pm

    As this coup plot story further unfolds. we will see likewise if a predicate is being laid for a possible crackdown against legitimate political dissent. Abangan…

  3. Ding G. Gagelonia on July 7th, 2008 6:16 am

    While a closer reading of the Revised Penal Code shows that there is, indeed, an article (#136) on the supposed crime of “proposing to commit coup d’etat,” the same provision provides only a maximum prison term of 6 years, with the offense considered ‘bailable’. This explains why Mr. Adaza himself was able to get out of jail Friday night even as he was also charged with extortion and grave threats.

    Knowing ‘Bono’, we are sure he is not at all perturbed and would probably say he “eats accusation like these for breakfast.” given his long experience in law, and politics. By the way, with the probation law, crimes punishable with 3 to six years imprisonment are covered if you are a first offender.

    So Adaza would probably even dare his accusers to “throw the book”at him.

    “All in a day’s work,” we can almost hear him saying.

    In fact if you hail to court all Filipinos thinking of what Adaza is alleged to have proposed given our perceives, or actual, state of misgovernance, you’d have Camp Crame’s detention facilities bursting at the seams.

Leave a Reply