Reflections of a runaway

HAGATNA, Guam—In February 1986, the Filipino people, armed with flowers and rosaries, stood in front of the dictator’s amphibious tanks during a beautiful revolution that overthrew the Marcoses. Back then we had youthful idealism, with stardust on our foreheads, having no inkling that in the succeeding years the anniversary of that event would be marked with doubts, despondency and uncertainty about the future of our country.

On Feb. 25, the indefatigable Filipino activists marked the 22nd anniversary of People Power I by stepping up their call for the ouster of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, president of the kleptocratic regime.

The call for another revolution has not been gaining grounds, what with the People Power–fatigued masses that have learned to fend for themselves, seeing the uselessness of the government in their lives. Filipinos would rather check their Friendster accounts than launch another revolution.

The activists back home are now turning to us, the overseas Filipinos. Eight million of us are scattered in every corner of this planet.

The “Bagong Bayani Ayaw kay Gloria” (New Heroes against Gloria), a coalition of organizations composed of overseas Filipinos, launched a global petition demanding Arroyo to step down.

The self-exiled Filipinos matter because we are the backbone of our country’s economy. The Philippine government refers to us as “the new heroes,” a pathetic pat on our backs for pumping over $14 billion a year into the country. Our government shamelessly advertises labor export as its major industry. Our nation is governed by fools who don’t mind that the country’s intellectuals, artists and skilled workers are leaving, as long as green bucks are coming in.

Ah, they call us “heroes.” I’d rather call us “runaways.”

The “Gloria Resign” petition began amid the raging controversy over the Arroyo administration’s award of $329.5-million communications technology contract to Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Co. Ltd., China ’s second largest telecommunications firm. Philippine officials involved in the contract negotiation allegedly stood to get millions in cuts from the aborted deal.

I received a copy of the petition in my e-mail. I don’t know what to do with it. Should I sign up? I forwarded it to a couple of fellow runaways. They didn’t care.

The petition will not exactly do anything. It won’t make Gloria resign, of course. She was asleep when God was distributing the virtue of shame.

But one’s decision to sign or not is a vote of conscience. And if one chooses to sign, the next question pops up: Who will replace her?

There is no alternative political figure to whom we could be comfortable giving our trust. Arroyo’s dummy vice president is out of the question.

Sadly, most of the runaways that I know don’t give a damn anymore. One revolution after another has developed a sense of apathy in most of us.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that only Armageddon can destroy my country,” Zaldy Dandan writes in his column (Marianas Variety Saipan edition). “We will survive Arroyo and her ilk and the other plunderers who will succeed her. We will whine and grumble, as usual, while remaining complicit in the mess we always find ourselves in.”

We watch and read the news about the horrific affairs of our government with a sense of relief because we are not there.

More than for the news, The Filipino Channel is important to us because we love Filipino soap operas with hysterical women screaming at one another.

Many have indeed developed indifference to our government. We don’t have the luxury of time to contemplate on the “Gloria Resign” petition because right now, we, the overseas Filipinos, are busy with our own mission: world domination.

(Send feedback to marvic@ mvguam.com)