RETIRED Col. Hector Tarrazona, PMA Class 1968, has raised two disturbing factors threatening the stability of the current government on his recent FB post: He mentioned that members of his PMA 1967 upper class have become deeply concerned.
“Before I get misunderstood, I am for the success of PBBM, or whoever our President is, because his success will mean our success and his failure will be our failure. (1.) The group of Gen. Rio and Colonel Odo. has proven to a certain extent the computerized wholesale cheating during the last May 2022 national elections; and (2.) The Maharlika Fund (MIF) is being forced down our throats, overburdening taxpayers paying 12% VAT and other taxes.
“The first is known to all concerned Filipinos. The second is a self-created monster by the government. With almost P14 trillion in national debt, we have no money to invest in MIF because the sovereign wealth fund is based on government surplus funds. No reason can justify the MIF. In the case of the MIF, we do not have a working democracy because our senators and congressmen, except Senator Risa Hontiveros and six congressmen, acted like puppets by approving the MIF bill. Likewise, it is beyond my understanding why the Finance Secretary, Budget Secretary, Socioeconomic Secretary and the BSDP Governor fully support the MIF. Are they all afraid to lose their jobs?
‘Are they all afraid to lose their jobs?’
“Here is the real danger. When PBBM signs the MIF Bill into law, the Secretary of Finance, who is also (the) chairman of Landbank, will be the incoming chairman of the Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC). Putting P50 billion in the MIF/MIC from Landbank by the same person will be the greatest threat to the salaries and pensions of all government employees whose depository bank is Landbank. My PMA Class 1967 upper class, I think, saw this picture very clearly.
“I pray that God would give our President discernment and wisdom to make the correct decisions.”
***
Would the kind and heartwarming accolades for the late former Chief of Staff and Sen. Rodolfo Biazon be similarly expected for other military and political leaders who took part in the series of bloody military upheavals that rocked our country during the Cory Aquino administration?
Most of them have remained beyond the law’s reach even if their names had figured in numerous witnesses’ accounts. Two have become senators, virtually washing their hands off the blood of fellow officers and plain bystanders who were mowed down by rebel soldiers in one of the coups.
The celebrated case of labor leader Rolando Olalia, who was tortured and brutally killed by RAM soldiers, displayed the deadly might of the military and the undisputed impunity the leaders had flaunted. The sentencing of three soldiers — out of 12 identified suspects, most of whom are at large — came early this year, 36 years after the criminal charges for kidnapping and murder were filed. The charges had gone up only to the level of Col. “Red” Kapunan, the deputy chief of the elite security group of the Department of Defense headed by Juan Ponce Enrile.
The actual mastermind was never legally identified. Kapunan himself, who ordered the surveillance of Olalia, as court records showed, before he was kidnapped and murdered was acquitted also this year. The afterlife beckons with an utterly fierce vengeance to those who never knew repentance and restoration for many lives that had perished.
***
Pairs of blind people begging at LRT terminals at Robinson’s Metro East on Marcos Highway and on Recto Ave. in Manila seem special to me. They never fail to catch the commuters’ attention because they sing using a videoke machine.
Most of the time while passing through, my feet would feel like lead and I could not help but pause to exchange pleasantries with them, put some coins in their collection box and pray. I could think of nothing else to ask Our Father in Heaven but to restore their sight.
I could not pray for God to be just good and kind and not beseech Him for their healing. It is not enough, indeed, for them to have money for their meals and clothes, but for them to experience the love and power of the Creator and Lord of the universe who blesses in extraordinary ways, especially the sick, the infirmed and the suffering. Truly, “He is the God that healeth thee!”
