SATTIsfaction

TRILLANES FOUR AND THE EDSA FARCE

We spend millions making officers and gentlemen out of cowards and what do we get?
Cowards, that’s what.
Once again, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV ran away from his destiny to make himself a martyr to kick up the societal change necessary to make this country great again.
Too bad, neither an expensive Philippine Military Academy (PMA) education nor a seat in the Senate could give man courage. Trillanes stared death in the face and once again he retreated with his tail between his ass.
What we have is exactly a repetition of the short-lived 2003 Oakwood Apartments mutiny where instead of coming out with guns blazing, Trillanes and his fellow officers fired off their months. As in today’s action, they used the media not only to ventilate their gripe, but also to use the members of the press as their human shield.
As in the past, they counted on the media presence to stop a military and police action but when they saw government forces moving to crush them this time, they raised the white flag. And Trillanes was quick to say that they did it to protect the media from the ensuing firefight at the posh Manila Peninsula Hotel. What a crap!
And what did Juan Tanga get for it? Nothing. Like in Oakwood, all we had was poor publicity abroad which witnessed the cowardice of our military officers. All of us harvested losses in foreign investments and in disrupted economic activities at the country’s premier financial district.
Instead of gaining immortality, Trillanes only earned the ire of people now affected by curfews imposed by the government.
If there was any good coming out of the Trillanes EDSA Farce, it was the realization on his part that the people never really voted for him in the last election and his electoral victory was really a result of the protest vote against President Arroyo.
Trillanes counted on his electoral magic to get people to his side, but what he forgot was the fact that people have already stopped trusting him, having seen how he led his men to the gallows in Oakwood.
In Oakwood, Trillanes showed he was not an officer; in Manila Peninsula, he showed he was not a senator either.