Arroyo camp trying hard to get people’s sympathy

In a desperate move, Arroyo loyalists have been squeezing to the last drop the issues and concerns about the arrest of former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who is accused of electoral sabotage to gain public sympathy. But they are as if asking for the moon. How can the people sympathize with a former ruler whose administration was characterized by ineptitude, abuse, irregularities and other sins of omission and commission?

The Arroyo loyalists even went to the extent of claiming and proclaiming that the former president is being persecuted. Look who’s talking? Persecution would apply to what was done to the parents of President Aquino during martial law. Remember: Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” S. Aquino Jr. was jailed by the Marcos dictatorship for seven years and seven months. He suffered solitary confinement in different military camps because of trumped-up charges. Former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino was denied the courtesies befitting a lady, nay, a widow whose husband was brutally murdered when he came home to his homeland to lead the crusade to restore truth, justice, freedom and democracy snatched from the Filipinos when Ferdinand E. Marcos, a homegrown despot and dictator, declared martial law on Sept. 21, 1972. Also, a rubber-stamp Congress during martial law robbed her of hard-earned victory in the 1986 snap presidential election.

And among freedom-loving and right-thinking Filipinos, they could not forget how Marcos’ military officials and men required Cory Aquino to walk deep in the night for a dozen kilometers, along with Sen. Lorenzo M. Tañada and Ninoy’s mother, Aurora A. Aquino, from Malanday, Valenzuela City, to the poblacion of Meycauayan, Bulacan. This happened during the 1984 protest action  dubbed “Tarlac to Tarmac” led by the August Twenty-One Movement (Atom) of Agapito “Butz” A. Aquino.

And who could forget the insults and indignities suffered by Cory and her children every time they would visit Ninoy in his solitary cell, especially in Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija? The list goes on and on. All this amounted to persecution.

But the arrest of Arroyo? What she went through was nothing compared to the persecution done to then opposition stalwarts like Senator Tañada, former Senate President Jovito R. Salonga, Sen. Jose W. Diokno, Sen. Francisco “Soc” A. Rodrigo, Joaquin “Chino” Pardo Roces, Dean Armando J. Malay, Jose Mari Velez, former Speaker Ramon V. Mitra Jr. and many more.

And besides, Arroyo is charged with a serious crime. She has to face the accusation. She can afford the best lawyers, including one of the closest friends of Marcos, lawyer Estelito Mendoza, former solicitor general, former Pampanga governor and former justice secretary and her “kabalen,” to defend her. She should face the music and do away with the “theatrics.”

—EUSEBIO S. SAN DIEGO,

founder, Kaguro and former president,

Quezon City Public School

Teachers Association,

[email protected]