Independence Day

We celebrate the country’s independence every June 12.

But more than 100 years after the late Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo declared the first Philippine Republic, Filipinos are still searching not just for the freedom promised to those revolutionaries but the prosperity that was supposed to accompany that freedom.

If Aguinaldo — himself accused of supplanting the Great Plebian Andres Bonifacio’s leadership in the Katipunan — were alive today, he and his comrades in arms would have been either shocked over or resigned to the sheer manipulations and maneuverings done by this country's politicians in order to wrest leadership.

But then Aguinaldo — who passed away in the 1960s and thus managed to see the early days of the Philippine Republic — may have gotten a glimpse of how the Filipino political animal would have evolved in the way Filipino officials comported themselves either during the performance of their duties or their public lives.

The question of this country's independence always crops up this time of year amid the constant debates among the continuing dependence on the US and other foreign powers, and the country's inability to rise above the economic, political and moral quagmire it had become stuck in ever since the Marcoses came to power about four decades or so ago.

True, there have been bright spots that are few. But of the few peaceful transfers of power, the succeeding leadership had either failed to capitalize on their predecessor’s gains, or ignored them completely to set about their own agenda which have been overtaken by developments across the globe.

Such was the case with then president Joseph Estrada, whose overwhelming mandate was broken by his dealings with corrupt men. Now President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose claim to People Power’s legacy, was tainted by her alleged electoral manipulations.

True, independence was more or less in working condition in this country but whatever claims made by the Arroyo government toward moral ascendancy, let alone credibility was smeared time and again with the constant attempts to mangle the Constitution.

Last Wednesday, Cebuanos joined their counterparts across the country in denouncing plans by this government to railroad Charter change through constituent assembly.

While there have been movements across the country to declare their own independence, their plans have never come to fruition.

Unfortunately for the Filipinos, that very same divisiveness is now being encouraged by our lawmakers who fashion themselves as being cut from the same cloth that Aguinaldo and other national heroes were.

It's up to us to save them from their delusion.