Making an example of just one big fish, even a sitting president, will not be a historical turning point, as the more optimistic pundits assert, if not followed by the investigation and punishment of others, especially friends and allies of the current dispensation. We shall see no end to the corruption and plunder, by which our future itself, is plowed under, unless those in power who claim to be graft-busters can find the courage to go after more than just their own political enemies. The investigation of alleged plunder by Makati s Erap Jr., Jojo Binay, is a case in point, which the elections won t end, no matter how they turn out. Many other cases cry out for justice. If the people of Edsa Dos are full of disdain at seeing a rowdy, ragamuffin reflection of themselves in the people of Edsa last week, it may be because we can only go to the deep well of the people s ultimate sovereignty so often.
People power is like chemotherapy.
The cancer that was Erap could not be cured by the conventional surgery of impeachment. It needed an Edsa dosage of people power. But this medicine has some bad side effects on the body politic, not the least of which are that it is addictive and no one can guarantee its counterfeits, which are also amalgams of religion and politics that any madman can load into a hypodermic of populist hype to foment trouble. All this pious talk from Jaime Cardinal Sin about how the Edsa Shrine is private property only deepens the impression that the Church hierarchy serves the rich, not the poor, and fuels the fire between them. The forces of People Power II can surely find some common ground with the pro-Erap hordes on at least one of the latter s grievances, namely, that the drive against corruption should not end with him.