Oppression comes in many forms.
It is not just about policemen marching down the street with water hoses, truncheons, and guns. It is not simply about unmarked vehicles and goons whisking away idealistic young men in the middle of a busy mall. Nor does it take the dark shapes of military and government officials lying through their teeth. Or when the so-called arbiters of public taste and morality slap an X mark on a small film that finally expresses the sentiment of the increasingly disgruntled majority.
When the highest leadership of this country brazenly believes that they can purchase fealty with cash bags like some small-town hoodlum, they are not only insulting us. It is an act of oppression.
When the president’s minions come to her defense with lies and excuses that are bigger insults to the people’s intelligence, they are oppressing us. They are trampling on our fundamental human right— the right not to be treated like intellectual cockroaches.
It is clear now that this moral center of this country’s leadership—of questionable nature to begin with— has finally crumbled. Government has lost all moral authority. We are ruled by deception, arrogance, and the bottomless appetite for power. The impunity by which evil is waged is simply astounding.
A government that disrespects its people has no right to hold power.
Now is not the time to assume neutral positions.
Like the concept of “oppression,” freedom also wears a multitude of masks. It is urgent that we recognize what those masks are, how they look like, and how to create them, and ultimately, how to destroy those masks.
And the first one we must destroy is our own. Because when we remove our masks we realize that we are profoundly angry, dissatisfied, and hurt. Also, because when we remove our masks we ultimately reveal what is truly noble and beautiful in all of us.
It is not just about policemen marching down the street with water hoses, truncheons, and guns. It is not simply about unmarked vehicles and goons whisking away idealistic young men in the middle of a busy mall. Nor does it take the dark shapes of military and government officials lying through their teeth. Or when the so-called arbiters of public taste and morality slap an X mark on a small film that finally expresses the sentiment of the increasingly disgruntled majority.
When the highest leadership of this country brazenly believes that they can purchase fealty with cash bags like some small-town hoodlum, they are not only insulting us. It is an act of oppression.
When the president’s minions come to her defense with lies and excuses that are bigger insults to the people’s intelligence, they are oppressing us. They are trampling on our fundamental human right— the right not to be treated like intellectual cockroaches.
It is clear now that this moral center of this country’s leadership—of questionable nature to begin with— has finally crumbled. Government has lost all moral authority. We are ruled by deception, arrogance, and the bottomless appetite for power. The impunity by which evil is waged is simply astounding.
A government that disrespects its people has no right to hold power.
Now is not the time to assume neutral positions.
Like the concept of “oppression,” freedom also wears a multitude of masks. It is urgent that we recognize what those masks are, how they look like, and how to create them, and ultimately, how to destroy those masks.
And the first one we must destroy is our own. Because when we remove our masks we realize that we are profoundly angry, dissatisfied, and hurt. Also, because when we remove our masks we ultimately reveal what is truly noble and beautiful in all of us.
DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism calls on every one that now more than ever is the time to shred our masks and step up to be heroes of our times, to be noble, to be DAKILA.
*The statement was released during the launch of DAKILA's Out of the Box Project on Peace and Human Rights last October 26, 2007 at Penguin, Malate.
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