Tongue In, Anew

Oakwood Is In Manila Pen

Second UPDATE (Dec. 6, 2007 10:21 a.m.)

I posted this in Ellen Tordesillas' blog in response to a post that the "rebels" didn't get the public's sympathy:

It was not sympathy they [Trillanes and Lim] were after. They got all the sympathy they need. They want to see how far the people are willing to take it. The politicians were purposely kept out of it because the duo wanted to gauge purely the civilians. They chose the people whom they were calling and the politicians were not it. Sure, they had their constituents, especially Binay, Trinidad or JV who can fill the streets in a matter of minutes, but methinks this act was limited to the covenant between Trillanes and his voters, Lim and his troops.

It scared the shit out of Esperon and his henchmen, they had to give way to Ronnie Puno and his patolas because he was trembling stiff. He even had to make sure the ten truckloads of reinforcements that came the next day from Nueva Ecija were HIS.

Why, are the camps in Aguinaldo, Bonifacio, Villamor and Roxas Blvd. (all capable of arriving in twenty minutes or less) already sympathetic to the rebels? Or is the military puzzle that the two dropped on their laps too tough to crack they had to step back to the cops? They had to get a warrant of re-arrest to quell a coup d’etat, bah! Think!

If there’s anyone laughing in Esperon’s, hell, Gloria’s, camp, he ought to have his head checked.

I was asking earlier if there have been confirmation that the missing PAF jet actually crashed around Palawan because if there were none, I believe it’s the reason Esperon has personally gone to Malaysia.

Definitely it’s not about bussing-in a million-or-so paid rallyists carrying packed lunch! That’s what the simpletons believe. Let them.

This is genuine. The citizens’ awakening that will stay for good and not like the 2 EDSAs that went awry as fast at they happened. They were willing to avoid the shortcuts. The people chose to stay. They had to obey. They will just lick their wounds and fight another day.

No sir. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot.

And this :

It’s Esperon who had the most shit on his face after the incident. Malacañang cannot even trust him now to guard his prisoners they want the “rebels” transferred to Muntinlupa. It isn’t difficult to see who won the hearts of the man in uniform, it was those who had the balls!

UPDATE (Dec. 4, 2007 9:20 a.m.)

Cool! Look at these links and be right in the middle of the action. (Requires Quick Time Player):

Peninsula Scene 1
Peninsula Scene 2
Peninsula Scene 3

ORIGINAL POST



The "incident" at Peninsula isn't as simple as many people think it is.

Why do I say that? The plan was executed off what seems to me an old and complicated, all-encompassing multi-layered, multi-option plan. Oh no, it was not a plain withdrawal-people-power-surrender affair at all.

While many continue their worthless pettifogging cheap shots at Trillanes for falling in the same ditch twice, ditto General Lim (he had been recorded and seen reading a similar withdrawal of support last year), they fail to recognize or even just attempt to acquire some degree of sophistication by looking at the execution of the plan from a plane higher than what their boring, simplistic minds can be capable of.

These acts of the duo are preliminary steps in a rigid road-map that details the transformation of this materialistic, corrupt, uncaring and self-centered, backward-sliding society. It is not against Gloria alone. Nor is it for the present times only. Perhaps, it is only now that the time has come when some of the players have achieved a more influential role in the realm of politics, and society as a whole, to effect the outcome of such a master plan.

Although many strategists (okay, let's include political pundits who are bloggers, too) are dismissing the effectiveness of such actions, even calling the failure a result of "people power fatigue" (if such an animal really exists), I have yet to hear someone say, "Hey that's that's step two, of chapter three of the National Recovery Program!" Or whatever plan it is called. Even Gringo is keeping mum, that's his blueprint, in action, right there!

I said "rigid" because the steps were no different from that of the Magdalos' Oakwood plus this time, they made sure the "undelivered" withdrawal of support Gen. Lim recorded last year was officially declared. Why then are these so important that these antecedent acts had to be repeated? Because these are kickoff activities that would result in the implementation of the next stage of the conflict. They have caught every one's attention. The message has been delivered quite clearly: that there will always be moral guardians in the military if and only when the helpless civilians have fallen indifferent or simply cowed by fear. That's the reason they are labeled messianic. As if messiahs ARE the evil ones. As if they ARE the people's real enemies.

Any marketing professional knows his AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. The four stages are carefully designed, complete with fall-backs, auto-responses and scripted pitches very much like those annoying telemarketers who drive you crazy because they are saying all the right things you are left with just all the lame excuses, if not buying their products right then and there! In the end, you may not realize it but you find yourself agreeing with them.

This is the pattern I read in these activities. Why repeat where you failed before? The idea is not that you are expected to act immediately, the Trillanes-Lim plan works much like a raingauge. It is a method of measurement, at the same time it rubs in, or more significantly, nails in, in a calculated manner the ideals of the movement, what it aims to achieve, how it plans to get there. Later, it provides the details how your personal involvement will make it necessary for the movement - the social transformation of the country - to succeed with everybody else in. Not just the elite politicians.

The reactionary government saw it the way I did, they know the unheeded call to gather at Manila Pen was not the end of it. They knew the act had to be sustained by forces not limited to the incarcerated officers or the commands they previously held. The "A" has been achieved and the "I" is about to begin. What keeps Malacañang guessing is the timetable of the execution. Is the "Interest"-soliciting group coming out hours after Peninsula? Or the next day? Or the next month? They didn't have many choices so they took the more conservative option, also the less-riskier one: to assume that the next wave will happen in the next hours or probably coincide with the next day's Bonifacio Day rallies, hence, the declaration of curfew and setting up of roadblocks and intensified checkpoints.

It would be foolish to assume Trillanes and company didn't know how gov't would react, blockade of absolutely all roads leading to Manila Pen IS the elementary response!

What they didn't know is that, in the ongoing word war between the incarcerated officers in Fort Bonifacio and Tanay on one hand versus Esperon and his camp on the other, it was jellyfish Esperon who will turn sissy first and hide his tail between his legs.

A few weeks ago, Esperon had been provoked by the Tanay group of Querubin, Miranda and Lim to tell all about Hello Garci and his cheating participation as a response after he tried to scare them that he will come out with the video of Lim's supposed announcement of declaration of their withdrawal of support in February of 2006. Nakakalalaki na ang hamunan. Who will blink first?

Lim did it again, this time live on national TV while clueless Esperon was watching (adoring?) his new recruit, Manny Pacquiao, on the latter's first military service day somewhere in Mindanao. Lim's act in Peninsula, therefore, was a continuance of their challenge to Esperon to come clean with the charges of cheating in Hello Garci. Lim et al have done their part, it was now up to Esperon to do his. Esperon defaulted. As far as Lim and Trillanes are concerned, their score with Esperon has been settled, they are the macho soldiers, Esperon was the weakling. And they did it even if they were under heavy guards. A big open-palm slap on Esperon's face.

Why was Esperon so helpless he seemed like a faggot? The Magdalos and the Tanay officers know it, Esperon cannot take the bait and risk sending his troops to pulverize the duo in the hotel. He doesn't know anymore who's still with him. All he needs to do is send the Army, Air Force or the Marines (stationed in adjacent cities Taguig and Pasay) who will be in Manila Pen in less than 20 minutes, or the Navy in Roxas Boulevard who might take just a little bit longer. But no, he didn't know whom to trust at that precise moment, the renegades completed their march from the RTC in JP Rizal St., down the whole of Makati Avenue, and all the way to the corner of Ayala where Peninsula is. Had the camps under him been ordered to, they would have caught up with the marchers before they even reached Buendia (Gil Puyat Ave.) if it's true what they know say that not all of the guards switched camps or that the AFP is solid. We all know now that that is pure hogwash. (Imagine, octogenarians were marching with them! It couldn't even be called a march, at that speed, a procession, maybe!) Those still loyal, if any, had enough time to report and those receiving the report had enough time to respond. But no, the AFP's indecision left them out of the picture and Ronnie Puno's PNP had to take over. And run the show by himself, Puno did. The Philippine Army's thousands-strong response team had to be transported in the next day, coming all the way from Nueva Ecija, haha!

The seeds have been planted in Oakwood, Peninsula watered them. This is going to take a long process but to me, it is better that it takes that longer, more arduous route. We've learned during the past two EDSAs that easily-earned victories were gone as fast as they came, there were shortcuts that opened more holes that the "revolutions" aimed to plug.

Although my personal preference is that this regime be disposed of in a more expeditious manner, the better part of discretion dictates that deliberation, prudence, and conscientiousness will provide superior results in terms of permanence and indestructibility.

Trillanes and Lim and the rest of us are not the losers here. No amount of propaganda and uneducated reasoning elsewhere can convince me otherwise. The losers are the corrupt, the incompetent, the tyrants. The victors are righteousness, idealism and patriotism.

I can sleep well tonight on the thought that my kids will have future leaders that are not rotten to the core, they have their hearts in the right place, and will never be cowed in the fight for truth and justice.


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Labels: Antonio Trillanes IV, Coup d'etat, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Manila Peninsula Siege, Oakwood Mutiny, Rebellion

posted by Tongue's Wrath @ 12/04/2007 01:01:00 AM 25 comments