[Philippine's human rights violations] Martial Law Diaries, and other papers [corruption in the Philippines] #10/218
And so, while individual members of the AFP may not have any liking for the ruling elite (they may even hate these human leeches), at least they see to it that the gradually acquired vested interests in terms of high pay, benefits, rewards, etc. are preserved.
12 JAN
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While the ruling class and top hierarchy of its national “private army” (AFP) live in affluence, the rest of the population live in grinding poverty. The “wretched of the earth” must labor, sweat, and strain their backs to provide the onerous taxes and profits with which to maintain the affluence and high living standard of the ruling class and their representatives in the bureaucracy. The same back-breaking effort, sweat (and even blood) must be given by the toiling masses to ensure the continuous flow of profits to the bulging pockets of alien capitalists and local compradors. “Ginigisa sa sariling mantika"best describes this exploitative and oppressive process.
The tragedy of the masses is that they are forced to pay onerous taxes (mostly indirect) for the maintenance of military and police institutions that are used by the ruling class to suppress, stifle, coerce, intimidate, arrest, confine, and even liquidate members of the working class and peasantry who try to assert their basic rights and recourse to elementary justice. This is specially the case under conditions of martial law where state power is concentrated in the hands of a narrow-based dictatorship.
13 JAN
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Such reform gimmicks are palliatives at most, although they can be effective in the short-run in deceiving and distracting the working class. But over the long haul the exploitative nature of the ruling class exposes itself despite intensive propaganda aimed at foiling the politicization of the masses. The greatest fear of the ruling class is the raising of the social awareness and political consciousness of the broad masses.
The rich-poor gap has reached a point where well-fed animal pets in Forbes Park and Magallanes Village have become the envy of barefoot and rag-attired waifs of nearby Malibay and Tramo. After pushing and pulling their junk carts from sunrise to sundown under the scorching heat of the sun, these yagitsare too exhausted to do anything else but flop down on the bare wooden planks of their barong-barongfor much needed rest and sleep.