Turning Malacan Into A Philippine Bastille

The scenes around the Malacan Palace complex over the weekend gave your Midfielder an eerie feeling of deja vu.

Not since my earliest days as a journalist in the 70’s had I not seen the Palace by the Pasig fortified against angry Filipinos.

B arbed wires all around, container vans stacked like walls to restrict access with soldiers and policemen armed to the teeth as if gearing for urban warfare.

All these while the president of the day was away on one of her latest taxpayer-funded foreign sojourns while her spokesmen were fending off criticisms over the premeditated dispposal of the 4th impeachment complaint coupled with the charter change initiatives of Arroyo’s congressional allies.

“What has happened to the government of the day that it obviously feered it own people, the real sovereign?” I asked myself.

Now there are louder and louder calls for mass actions to oppose charter change with even charismatic El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde and for president Fidel Valdez Ramos speaking out against cha-cha.

Will Pres. Arroyo heed public clamor for her to put a halt to the cha-cha train and sign a covenant to relinquish the presidency in 2010?

Or will she and her pig-headed advisers conti9nue to turn Malacanan into a Philippine Bastille?

We should all learn well, and heed the lessons of history.