Manifesto of independence June 12, 2006

INDEPENDENCE DAY IS NORMALLY CELEBRATED in recollection of our freedom from colonial yoke or foreign invader. I personally am glad we changed its date from July 4 (the day the United States granted independence to this country) to June 12 (the day Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed it against Spanish rule). It affirms the idea that independence is not received like alms from a benefactor, it is asserted as a right in the face of someone who would take it away.

Independence Day need not always signify freedom from a foreign yoke, it can always signify freedom from a local one. It need not always be a rallying cry against an alien invasion, it can always be a rallying cry against a homegrown tyranny.

Today’s Independence Day holds a special significance in the second respect. June 12 comes in the middle of two first anniversaries—the revelation of the “Hello Garci tape” and GMA’s subsequent “lapse in judgment” apology for it. The usual suspects in Malacañang have tried to dismiss both by saying the issue has been put to rest, this country has moved on. In fact, the news of its death has been grossly exaggerated, to quote Mark Twain. It is grinding this nation to a halt.

It’s time we declared our independence from it. I submit this manifesto as an articulation of principles:

THE SOURCE of our crisis today is one thing and one thing only. It is the near-universal perception of the current government as illegitimate. The surveys bear it out. Most of the citizens believe GMA cheated in the elections, most of the citizens believe GMA did not win the elections, and at least 65 percent of the citizens want GMA to go by whatever means. This government has no mandate to rule.

Governments that have no mandate to rule can rule only by one means—by force, attended by its usual handmaidens—guile, deception and outright lie. History shows so. The Spanish had no mandate, other than the self-serving one of Christianizing the heathens, and ruled the country tyrannically, holding the power of life and death over the indio. The Americans had no mandate, other than the self-aggrandizing one of the White Man’s Burden, and ruled deviously, hiding the harshness of occupation with slogans about democracy.

The Japanese had no mandate, other than the self-expanding one of Asia for Asians, and ruled with the bayonet, its efforts to pacify a restive population comparable only to the American efforts to do so when they first seized this country at the turn of the 20th century. Ferdinand Marcos had no mandate after his second presidential term, other than the self-deluding one of tadhana, his destiny to rule, and drove this country to ruination, from which we continue to reel today.

GMA has no mandate, other than her fantasies, and is digging the grave for this country.

The “digging the grave” is by no means a figure of speech. Over the last couple of years, and especially since the “Hello Garci” tape surfaced last year—truth has a way of coming out, as Andres Bonifacio’s wife, Gregorio de Jesus, said, like the bloated bodies of the drowned—the bodies of dead journalists and activists have piled up. And it continues to pile up, notwithstanding the outcry of the community of the decent, including the international one. If the mountain of corpses is set to the torch, it will take days before the funeral pyre expires.

That is not accidental. That is the logical conclusion of an illegitimate rule. That is the culmination—or indeed but the latest development since there seems no end in sight—of a descent into dictatorship by a government that means to continue to rule without the people’s consent. That is all of a piece with EO 464, which prevents government officials, military and civilian, from shedding light on the truth about the last elections. That is all of a piece with CPR, which prevents the citizens from protesting what happened in the last elections. And that is all of a piece with 1017, which prevents the people from being ruled by a ruler they voted for.

Illegitimacy breeds dictatorship as surely as a poisoned well breeds cholera. And dictatorship kills, in more ways than one.

The usurper’s supporters say we should forget about the usurpation and move on. As though a people that have lost all sense of right and wrong, that can neither show pride nor self-respect, that can neither dispense nor obtain justice, can ever advance beyond a savage and brutish state. As though a nation that has lost all sense of good and bad, that has learned to live with oppression, that can abide the slaughter of the innocents, can ever move other than in the direction of a holocaust. The usurper’s supporters say we should forget about the usurpation and concentrate on changing the Constitution. As though changing a perfectly legitimate Charter will ever make up for changing a completely illegitimate leader. As though a political diversion will ever make up for a moral compulsion.

There is only one thing to do in the face of this. That is to call for snap elections to end the madness. Snap elections are not just possible only if GMA resigns or is ousted. Elections—or the universal call for it—are the one thing that will make GMA resign, or be ousted. Elections are not just the crowning ceremony to come at the end of a tyranny, they are a battering ram aimed at the walls of tyranny that will cause them to fall. If this country will unite in calling for elections, the call will be mightier than the sound of Joshua’s trumpets. The answer to an illegitimate rule is a legitimate rule. The answer to a leader the voters did not vote for is a leader the voters vote for. The answer to dictatorship is democracy.

Elections will make us breathe. The truth shall make us free.

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