We were not shocked. We knew from the very beginning that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would pardon former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada after his conviction for plunder. That pardon clearly showed the people that the two belong to the same ilk.
We ask: Can President Arroyo pardon political prisoners like Juanito Itaas and Orlando Bundalian who have been in prison much longer than Estrada was? Itaas and Bundalian have been languishing in jail, unlike Estrada who was happily “imprisoned” in a mansion.
Yes, Estrada and Ms Arroyo are “birds of the same feather.” Estrada sided with tycoon Lucio Tan against the workers of Philippine Airlines. He even reprimanded the workers, by asking them the question: “Nakakain ba ang CBA?” [“Can you eat a CBA?”] Estrada is pro-rich and his slogan “Erap para sa mahirap” [“Estrada for the poor”] is just a slogan.
Ms Arroyo, on the other hand, masterminded in putting our country under the clutches of globalization, the scheme of the capitalist class to prolong a dying system. Today, many workers are out of work. Regular workers are forced to resign and are replaced by contractual workers. A growing number of the urban poor are losing their homes in the name of progress whose measure is primarily infrastructure development, instead of human development.
In the run-up to EDSA People Power II, we didn’t join the Estrada Resign Movement. The Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng mga Maralita ng Lunsod (KPML -- Urban Poor Congress of Unity), together with bigger groups such as Sanlakas and Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP -- Union of Filipino Workers), built our own alliance calling for “Resign All” because we believed that Estrada and Ms Arroyo were the same. One of our posters said, “Patalsikin ang buwaya, papalit ang buwitre” [“Oust the crocodile, the vulture will take its place”].
We did not campaign for Estrada’s ouster just to put Ms Arroyo in Malacañang. That’s why immediately after EDSA II, we declared that “Estrada’s ouster is the people’s will but Gloria is not the people’s choice!”
There were also groups in the Estrada Resign Movement which had as their battle cry “Paglingkuran ang Masa.” But when the “masa,” the urban poor, stormed Malacañang during EDSA III, these groups stood against the “masa” [masses] in defense of Ms Arroyo.
Our call for “Resign All” has been proven right. Birds of the same feather. Ms Arroyo and Estrada are both bourgeois. They are not proletarians. Will we oust Ms Arroyo just to replace her with Noli de Castro? Will we oust a bourgeois to be replaced by another bourgeois? No way! Again we are issuing the call for “Resign All.” The workers and the urban poor demand: “Change the system!”
KA PEDRING FADRIGON, national president, Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng mga Maralita ng Lunsod, Block 31, Lot 82-83, Maya-Maya St., Phase 2, Area 2, Barangay NBBS, Dagat-Dagatan, Navotas, Metro Manila
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