‘Now we have another chance to institute and institutionalize real change and the way to succeed this time – indeed, the only way – is to make sure that we hold everyone accountable.’
YESTERDAY morning, I was up by 3:58. I decided to go to the gym for a quick workout before showering. I had to be at Cage Adriatico in Malate by 7 a.m. to meet up with five officemates, our designated meeting place before our March to Luneta. We all wore white shirts, with four of them wearing specially designed shirts that read KKK: Kilos Kontra Kurakot.
(Greetings to Marvic with wife Wina, and Randel, Dexter, Nik, Darien and Lira, my companions at the Luneta yesterday).
We figured that while parking at Adriatico, a distance away, would require a good 15 to 20-minute walk, an early morning walk would do us good. We started walking at 8 a.m. and by 8:20 we were at the Luneta. That’s when we noticed: we seemed to be the only ones wearing white!
Turns out that the color of the day yesterday morning at the Luneta was black, and that the majority of our fellow protesters were from the left rather than the political middle. It was evident in the chants and the painted slogans. It was also evident in the all-black get-up, all the way to ski masks that covered everything but the eyes.
And yes, we noticed the eyes. Not a few gave us piercing looks, some as if to tell us we were in the “wrong” place. Now that I think about it, this seemed to be what one cyclist was trying to tell us when he passed us and asked if we were going to the rally. The question puzzled us – wasn’t it obvious since we were wearing white? I guess he knew that Luneta was for the black shirts. We didn’t get the memo.
And so, as we mingled among the Luneta crowd, we did start to feel a bit out of place. Yes, the anger was palpable and yes, we shared the same anger, but it seems we didn’t share in what the desired outcome was. It should be evident by now that the angry citizens of this country are angry at the same people for the same reasons, but want the anger to lead to very different results. And just as the ends desired are different, so are the means.
Thus, it did not come to me as a surprise that by early afternoon, young men in black with their faces covered by ski masks were stoning barricades on Ayala Bridge close to Malacanang Palace. A former UP student activist told me, “Those are not activists; we use handkerchiefs to cover our noses and not ski masks to hide our identities; they must be provocateurs.”
Undeniably, some people want accountability for excesses committed from 2022, the year Bongbong Marcos took over, and demand his resignation. This naturally leads to the Vice President taking office, making Sara Duterte president.
Others only want accountability from 2016-2022, but I sense this to be a far smaller group in society. Focusing on 2016 will pin down Rodrigo Duterte and his political allies.
I suspect that a vast majority of Filipinos, however, and that includes myself and my officemates, want to hold everyone accountable from 2016 to the present, even going further back before 2016 if necessary. And this is because we want accountability sans the color of partisanship. A Marcos ally, a Duterte ally, a PNoy ally or a GMA ally found guilty in this unbelievably institutionalized web of corruption should be held to account and made to pay.
And this includes friends of mine, even friends of friends who have told me that our friendships with some of the people who seem to be involved need to be secondary to the need for accountability.
Almost 50 years ago, we took to the streets to oust Ferdinand Marcos but we did not do what needed to be done to institute and institutionalize real change. Today, we take to the streets again because Ferdinand Marcos Jr. blew the lid off a can of worms we long suspected existed but whose scale we never fully comprehended.
Now we have another chance to institute and institutionalize real change and the way to succeed this time – indeed, the only way – is to make sure that we hold everyone accountable.
Every single individual, whoever he or she may be.
