the peninsula affair

I'm sorry that this'll be my first post here in a long time and that it has to be about this.

after yesterday's events, i just feel like bitching.

i'm not particularly attached to either trillanes or the administration but i do think things could have gone better yesterday.

not that its ever a good idea to walk out of court or tramp down a street with a heavily armed entourage, or cause millions of pesos in property damage (not to mention the effect on tourism again) we might all benefit from a short moment of thought about what the heck is really happening to us as a country.

was trillanes right in doing what he did? i don't know. did the government do the right thing with its application of force? it might have.

the problem now is, at the risk of sounding like a monday morning quarterback, everybody has his own opinion and theory.

what was so terrible about having trillanes rant for hours on live media while negotiations were held?

i watched quite a bit of the coverage and never saw trillanes cause or threaten any bodily harm to a single person. well the couple who were having their wedding reception at the pen might be a different story, the wife might take it out on hubby for the botched party( in any case not trillanes' fault, atleast directly). i saw no reason to storm the pen.

i heard the number over the news, the report said 60 assaulters. i wouldn't have taken a hundred men into that hotel against trillanes and his men, all well trained soldiers quite capale of inflicting alot damage should they have decided to do so.

what justified the risk to all of those (60) men? it might be easy for those at the top to tell them to go in and get trillanes out at all costs. what might those costs be? a boy never seeing his father again, a father losing a son, a widow losing her man. why risk life when you have other avenues to explore?

as always, politics rears its ugly head, a curfew is installed, bringing back painful memories of a time when a man named marcos ruled with a heavy hand. people were afraid that trillanes would get enough air time that the the citizens of this so called democracy would listen to him. perhaps the fear was that he would be able to get people to overthrow the government when so much wrong was done to the people. as a product of such an event, the current administration has every right to be weary.

we call ourselves a democracy everyday, we celebrate heroes and their ideals. why no listen to this man? hear out what he has to say? isn't that what a democracy is? a form of government where everyone has a say and a right to be heard?