Imagine if Dr. Jose Rizal were a senator today

Today is the 165th birth anniversary of the greatest Malayan who ever lived, Dr. Jose Proctacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda, the national hero of this forsaken land which he called the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the cradle of noble heroes. Ours too is the home of the Filipinos, who Ninoy Aquino considered worth fighting for and dying for. This also happens to be the home of such characters as Alan Peter Cayetano, Rodante Marcoleta, Loren Legarda, Bato de la Rosa and Robin Padilla.

If Dr. Jose Rizal were a member of the same Senate, I would think he would lose no time but take the rostrum and deliver a privilege speech, on a question of collective privilege, if only to denounce in the strongest words of condemnation, the multiple abuses of many modern Capitan Tiagos, who shamelessly use political positions in order to plunder the nation and oppress the people. He would not mince words in exposing the flood control anomalies, and unmask the blatant and unmitigated corruption in high places. He would risk his life again in order to attack the government who exploit the poor, the ignorant and the powerless. If he needed to die again, he would.

If our national hero were a member of that august Senate chamber, which is being held captive by the unscrupulous greed for power, unmitigated ambitions and insatiable thirst for control and influence, he would never hesitate to denounce the use of the Bible and the Koran to justify selfish motives of trapos in their traditional and transactional politics. He would tell them to their faces that they are nothing but the new faces of Padre Damasol and Padre Salvi, who use their positions to mislead the people and compel them to subjugation. The national hero would expose the unmitigated ambition of a modern Dona Victorina who aspires to become greater than the governor-general using all schemes and machinations.

The Philippines today is a rich country with more than fifty million poor people, and with a few family dynasties that, for the longest time, totally control political power from the Palace to the remotest villages, and exclusively monopolize the privilege of robbing the national coffers. This is also the home of poor tenants like the families of Sisa, Crispin and Basilio, the land of Pilosopo Tasyo and Cabezang Tale, of Elias and Simoun and Crisostomo Ibarra and Maria Clara. More than a century has passed and the people aare still suffering from poverty and social injustice. There are no more Spanish invaders and encomenderos. The new oppressors are also Filipinos.

This is a nation of many Ilustrado, peninsulares and insulares, who never stop to dominate government and society, using superior wealth, unstifled influence and unmitigated power in order to marginalize, subjugate and oppress the truly nationalistic Filipinos. In this country, people like Dr Josde Rizal, Ninoy Aquino, Andres Bonifacio, and Antonio Luna would be eliminated because they are continuing  threats to the controlling elite. The Marcoses and the Dutertes are just the same, the Cayetanos and the Gatchalians. They will never work to save the people from poverty and social injustice because they are the causes of the social cancer that Dr Rizal denounced in his immortal Noli and Fili,

If Dr Jose Rizal were a senator today, he would extol senators Bam, Kiko and Risa and even Win Gatchalian. These characters like Marcoleta, Loren Legarda, Bato, Bong Go, the Cayetanos, the Tulfos, the Villars, and even Lito Lapid, Ping Lacson  and Tito Sotto- they have an earful to hear from our national hero. They better watch out.