Opinions: Activist Attack On Malacanang Palace

I am in no way siding with the Arroyo Government.

Mendiola, Manila - I've heard this morning in the radio that militants tried to penetrate the Malacanang Palace again. And I've got points to raise again.

The "Rally" At Mendiola

Why do militants here in the Philippines continue on trying to penetrate the Malacanang Palace? Rallying outside is one thing. Trying to enter it is another.

You can show your strong hate against PGMA and her government by protesting noisily and aggressively while not being a threat to the peace around you. What they did back there was pure aggression and taunting. They cracked sharp words loudly, they lied down on the road, and they even banged and pushed on the Palace's gates. These people should consider themselves lucky because our peace keeping authorities here in this nation are very tolerant. If this was some other nation, they'd be incarcerated immediately for months, no further questions asked. And they'll tell us thru the media that the PSG (Presidential Security Group) or the police started the violence or that the police aggravated them? Come on. Go kid your old man. Whatss shown by the media are edited videos of news reels that always try to strike to the minds of the Filipino that the government is pure evil.

The Failed Penetration Of The Palace

Why do these militants want to enter the palace in the first place? It's a worldwide fact that no one can enter any presidential shelter at any moment without proper documentation, unless stated otherwise. If you keep on persisting to enter the place, you can and you will be immobilized immediately, with being shot down as the last option. Do these people want to be killed so bad so that they can parade to the world something like "Gloria Arroyo shot this innocent man dead! Violation of human rights! United Nations help us! Impeachment!", Is that what they want? And even if they do enter the Malacanang Palace, what would they do inside? Vandalize? Terrorize? Play poker? What if they see Pres. Arroyo inside? Would they kill her? And if they do, what next? Estrada becomes President? Roxas? Villar? Would the military do coups? Will we become crappier? If chaos and anarchy ensues, would it scare investors? Would our nation suffer a much harder economical downtide because of their stupidity? I could go on and on. There's so many questions to ask. But these people, their feeble, closed minds are the last thing this country needs. They don't think logically. They act impulsively. They act brutely and uncivilly.

The "Filipino Militant" Style

See, we have two types of people who rally: Those who do it peacefully and break up without alarming the police and those that do break up violently, alarming the police. I want to point out that the militants I'm going to refer to in the next paragraph are those violent ones, not the peaceful kind.

These violent militants, activists, rallyists, whatever you want to call them generally have the same pattern of protesting: They start out as quiet peaceful little doves protesting at an area. Later they'll up the ante so that the cops come. They'll then taunt the police and do whatever it takes to get themselves hit i.e. vulgar words, mild malicious pushing and shoving etc. When the police reasserts their position, that's when it starts.

They'll grab you, throw stones and bottles at you, hit you with lengths of wood, harrass you, spit on you, punch you, whatever they can do to hurt you. And when the police fights back, they scurry away knowing that the media is filming the ruckus. They'll now play the role of the innocent. They'd shout at front of all the cameras "I'm innocent! These cops tried to arrest me and they hurt me so bad my head suffered a heavy blow and is now bleeding profusely!" and/or "We're just doing what we think is right. The police didn't have to do this to us. They' have no reason to. We didn't do anything." Yeah right. The police,while on duty and in front of national TV won't start such scramble if they aren't given any reason.

Who would you side on? These violent misfits of society who disrespect the law, act uncivilly, push the limits and can't even acquire a protest permit or the police who in my opinion 90% of the time does their service properly and risk their lives for the peace and order of this country?

The Camera

If you're a curious tourist with a camera getting pictures of these people as a souvenir, you'd probably be alright. But if you're a tall, stoic dude with a military cut hair and a camera (you don't even need to be an actual military/police man nor in a military/police outfit. You just need to look the part), get ready to be hurt. Badly.

These militants are afraid of cameras. Well, except for the media's camera. Why? Because they think that when a non-media personnel gets a picture of them, they're screwed. They consider it as their death warrant. So what do they do when someone captures an image of them? Easy. They grab the camera (basically stealing), mash it up 'till it can't be mashed up no more, (basically destruction of property and vandalism), take the film (if it's an analog camera) and cry to the media that these people are capturing their photos and that they would be killed soon. I can see thru the logic, but is the government that low-tech? Can't the government just download news reels of them at YouTube and use it as their marker? Weird huh?

Remember: You just need to look the part and you can be hurt at a whim.

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These are all the things that I can conger up for the moment. I do want to iterate that I am not siding with the Arroyo Government. I just state things as I see them.

'Till my next installment.

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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! and Reuters. God save the Philippines.