IF THERE is one recent incident that would confirm to Filipinos that our leaders have utterly surrendered our sense of being a “people”—our sovereignty—for their brief political advantage is the illegal attempt last May 11 to capture an elected senator of our Republic, Senator Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, based on a warrant issued by a discredited foreign court, the International Criminal Court, right inside the once august hall of our Senate.
We say the conspiracy of the ruling political circle to abduct him for the sake of their “brief political gain” is because everybody knows that their hold on power is limited to 6 years. And that window of time is fast approaching its end.
Unless, of course, they plan to scrap that fundamental body of laws too of our Republic as some rumors have suggested thru a ‘Constitutional Assembly’ (ConAss), which is to say we are about to be ‘conned right up to our a$$’ so they can remain in power for as long as they want.
At the end of the day all of us—the mighty and the humble—would be remembered for one thing and one thing alone: the “legacy” that we leave behind, to our friends, our family and our nation, for no amount of “manufactured narratives” can escape the judgement of history.
We believe that princes can be forgiven for failing their promise of deliverance to the destitute and hungry multitude for as long as they did not forego their fundamental task of maintaining the sovereignty of their realms. Give it away and what good legacy is there worth remembering?
Machiavelli has cautioned that one of the fastest ways to ruin your own country’s independence is to “invite” an armed force far stronger than your own for once settled, it would be very hard for you to shoo them away and only at the peril of your own rule.
In our case, our leaders willingly—and gladly did so—by allowing US Imperialism to make a garrison out of our own national territory yet again thru the return of their military bases over the fictional argument that it was necessary to “protect” us from a greater threat—China.
To believe that foreign garrisons add to our national dignity and sovereignty is false and an illusion. For us, the greatest “guarantor” of our peace is the fierce defense of our sovereignty, which is, our ability to decide, at all times, our nation’s destiny.
But not content with it, we are now seeing the utter destruction of what remains of our sovereign right to rule ourselves— allowing a foreign Kangaroo Court that is the ICC to usurp our judicial system—for the second time— to rule on the fate of another Filipino citizen on accusations concocted by domestic foreign agents.
Machiavelli also lessoned us that ‘it is better to be feared than to be loved.’ However, let us also remember his corollary caution to not let fear be overwhelmed by hate and contempt, for both overrides fear and inspire them to take action.
And over the way our leaders have transacted the entirety of our sovereignty for their brief pollical advantage, we may have arrived at the point that Machiavelli has warned us about: that tipping point of hatred and contempt.