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Thursday afternoon, Philippine police arrested former
defense secretary
Fortunato
 Abat
along with three of his companions on charges of sedition. The highly
decorated Major General, and former ambassador to China had announced at
the Club Filipino in San Juan that he was taking over as president of a
revolutionary transition government.
The former general gave few details about his planned
take-over, or the structure of his organization other than that it would
be a military junta and a “revolutionary
transition government.”
While many Filipinos at home and abroad
can understand the frustration, that General Abat and many like him are
going through, there are also those who feel that such acts themselves
do more harm than good because they undermine the authority of the
present government which then leads to even more
instability
down the road. And then there are the foreign investors who understandably will not bother
investing in countries that seem on the verge of collapse, no matter
how attractive their business opportunities might look.
 In
fact one need not look further than the expatriate Filipino community.
Far fewer have applied for Dual Citizenship than had been originally
expected. And even fewer seem to be investing back "home." Sadly, even
Filipinos themselves fear that they may lose everything they worked for
all their lives to unscrupulous businessmen, corrupt politicians, or to NPA (New People's Army) rebels and Abu Sayyaf bandits.
There are those who believe that
Philippine Society has not yet attained the level of political maturity
needed to sustain a democracy; for it is a very time-consuming, deliberate process. As a people, we all need to take a collective
deep-breath, roll-up our sleeves, and start working to better ourselves,
one step at a time...within the legal framework of the constitution.
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