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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-24/marcos-and-romualdez.avif" loading="lazy" alt="Marcos and Romualdez" />
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(Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (left) and Ferdinand Martin Romualdez)
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Almost every day, there aren't just posts made on social media but well-written essays arguing quite well how this administration is misgoverning the country to ruin. Not a few times - especially on the 2025 budget - did I feel that these social media writers have written excellent pieces on a topic such that I would just be repeating their arguments in this We, of course, would have to see whether their revulsion translates into actual revolt.
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About five columnists of the Philippine Star, whom I have respected over the years for the quality of their writing but who have hardly criticized the regime - probably in deference to the paper's owners, the Indonesian Anthoni Salim or his CEO Manuel Pangilinan - have in the past several weeks written pieces vehemently critical of the regime, especially of the 2025 national budget which has been scandalously formulated to fund the Marcos-Romualdez gang's representatives in Congress.
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Maybe Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, who has had an unblemished career in government, is a mole who has played along in getting such a corrupt budget enacted, knowing that it could be the start of this regime's downfall, as the impact of cuts in health and insurance services, hospitals boycott of PhilHealth rouse the masses to revolt. Or so I wish.
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I have learned over the years that columnists like me, at least the professional ones, usually represent the views of the country's middle class, specifically its thinking sector that closely monitors political developments.
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Their disappointment with - even detestation of - the Marcos-Romualdez regime, may have even already spilled over to the upper class, which usually prefers to be unidentified for obvious or not-so-obvious reasons. Indeed, I was shocked by the following piece written by former Supreme Court associate justice Antonio Carpio, which is virtually a call to overthrow the Marcos-Romualdez regime now. I don't remember him being this angry at an administration.
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Carpio's essay titled "The blind leading the lost: A nation betrayed":
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"'He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.' – Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The halls of Congress and the Senate reek of betrayal. This is no longer just a circus - it is a grand heist, a vicious mockery of the Filipino people's sacrifices. While we break our backs, bleed and sacrifice for this nation, our so-called leaders are busy looting not just our wealth but our very dignity. Their spectacle of greed and indifference has condemned 119 million Filipinos to despair. They are no leaders - they are traitors. Blind to the needs of the nation, leading us to a chasm of hopelessness.
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Let us not mince words - this is treason. When Congress butchered billions from education, they didn't just adjust a spreadsheet. They tore futures from the hands of Filipino children. They shattered the dreams of students who saw education as their only escape from the clutches of poverty. They sabotaged a nation's chance to rise, condemning generations to mediocrity and despair.
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Article XIV of our Constitution mandates that education receive the highest budgetary priority. Yet these cowards violated the law with impunity. They robbed the classrooms, burned the books, and locked the gates of learning. Our dismal global ranking in math, science and reading is no accident. It is a crime. It is murder - the murder of our children's potential.
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PhilHealth
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Zero funding for PhilHealth in 2025 is not just negligence - it's malice. It's as if Congress has declared war on the poor. How many parents will have to bury their children because they can't afford a doctor? How many breadwinners will be crippled by illness, left to rot because our healthcare system has been gutted?
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PhilHealth is not a "reserve fund" for their thieving hands to dip into. It is the lifeblood of millions of Filipinos who cling to it in their most desperate hours. The Universal Health Care Act clearly mandates sin taxes to support PhilHealth. They violated that, too. What do they call this? Mismanagement? No, this is state-sanctioned cruelty.
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And now, the 'Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program' (AKAP) comes along - a shameless election bribe dressed as charity. P26 billion stolen from education and health care, disguised as aid, but in reality, it's ammunition for the corrupt to cement their power. They will toss these scraps to the people during election season while millions of Filipinos starve, bleed and suffer.
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Do they think we are blind? Do they think we cannot see this brazen, cynical ploy for what it is? Every peso wasted on AKAP is another peso stolen from classrooms, hospitals and roads. It's another dagger in the back of the Filipino people.
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But perhaps the greatest betrayal is our own. Our silence feeds their arrogance. Why are we not in the streets? Why do we allow these thieves to gut our nation while we watch from the sidelines? Is it fear? Apathy? Exhaustion? Whatever the reason, our passivity emboldens them. Every moment of silence is a betrayal of the nation we claim to love.
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Even our Supreme Court, the supposed guardian of justice, stands paralyzed - too terrified of congressional wrath to do their duty. Where is the justice for the oppressed when even the judiciary cowers? When justice is silent, tyranny thrives.
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Middle class revolted by Marcos-Romualdez gang