He concluded his videotaped statement by quoting Jose Rizal: “If we have bad leaders today and in the past, it is not the fault of the many who know less but the fault of the few who know more but do nothing or who do not do enough.”
“What we soldiers feel is no diffent from what our people see and feel... We have a responsibility that we don't forget, that is to defend the Filipino people” he said.
Mariano added ominously: “At kung ang kasalukuyang pamahalaan ay walang intensyon o kaya walang naisasagawa upang isalba ang buhay ng nakakarami [And if the present government has no intention or could not do anything to save the lives of the majority] – it is the duty, it is the right of every Filipino including soldiers to replace the government, I repeat, replace the government.”
[Let us fight for our right to live and for the good future of our youth. Our aim is to live based on truth, justice, peace, and progress.]
"Let us once and for all build a nation based on truth for without it, there can be no justice. And without justice, we shall have no peace. And without peace, there will be no development," he added.
My immediate reaction when I read that news report was, here we are again, another brand of military corruption, corruption of their own mind and the public mind, that anyone with arms and organized enough can change a civilian government anytime, anyhow they want to. The disrespect for the rule of law -- like the Constitutional law on how we should change government, by the ballot, not by the bullets and bombs, not by armed rebels or mercenaries or bleeding heart soldiers.
And this is another instance or reason why the AFP-DND should shrink. There are too many aspiring politicians in uniform there.
Then I heard or read that the noise by that Colonel "is only the beginning." Beginning of more political destabilization, of more military adventurism at seizing state power?
My unsolicited advice to the new round of military adventurists is this: DO IT. Show how interventionist you are to supposedly change and replace an already interventionist civilian government that you despise. Rule of men, not rule of law. That is the main preoccupation in government, whether in the civilian bureaucracy, or the police and military establishments. Pare-pareho na lang sila.
Rule of law, not rule of men. That is what all of them should understand and respect. The internal mechanisms to control corruption from each agency or department for instance, should be respected. Then restiveness, valid or invalid, can be minimized.
On another note, retired military officers also should NOT serve in any government agency after retiring. They shd work in the private sector. Having been living off subsidized by taxpayers from their Philippine Military Academy (PMA) education to military to post-military career, they should try being net taxpayer, not net tax receiver. Perhaps a law can be passed towards this direction.
A friend commented that in Singapore, military officers would leave the service and take positions in the civilian bureaucracy. Then Switzerland is another example, where virtually all civilian high ranking persons also have had high ranking posts in their military.
Here, many retired AFP generals and colonels do not move to the private sector. They move to become officers in other government agencies, like the BIR and BOC, DFA, LTO, DOTC, etc. Those guys who got lots of money from taxpayers (P500,000 per year per student at the PMA alone or P2M/student for 4 years), then to the AFP with its billions of pesos of annual budget, then to other government positions. They don't understand the plight of ordinary traxpayers and businessmen. They think that for almost ALL problems, government intervention is the solution.
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See also:
Corruption in the military, part 2, January 31, 2011, and
Corruption, robbery investigation and suicide, part 2, February 08, 2011.
if we have had bad leaders today and in the past, it is not the fault of the many who know less, but the fault of the few who know more but who do nothing or who don’t do enough.
ReplyDeletewhere did rizal said that????
Perhaps the colonel just made those words and mentioned JP Rizal as his source. A disservice to the national hero.
ReplyDelete