Noli doesn’t say sorry? Sorry na lang siya!

After years of being a broadcaster and a politician, it is somewhat shocking to find out that Noli de Castro considers picket-protests as personal offenses to public officials. The workers and the people conduct protests because we have grievances that the government should address – such as when government agencies claiming to provide houses for the poor actually demolish the existing houses of the urban poor. We find it sad that we have to lecture the country’s vice-president on this, but there seems to be no other way: We’re not merely being rude (bastos), Kabayan. Don’t take it too personal.

He complains that he drove for 2.5 hours to Los Baños only to be “insulted.” First, was it he who drove the car he was riding? TV footages of his visit show he had a chauffer when he was leaving the place. He is leading a very comfortable life, he shouldn’t speak as if going to a nearby province is an ordeal. And he says it is the urban poor who are lazy? Look who’s talking! Second, what we are supposed to do? Thank him? Sit still and be quiet even as the houses of the urban poor are being demolished by the agency he leads? Kabayan doesn’t seem to have an inch of empathy for our urban poor kababayans.

The poor are lazy? During elections, Noli projects himself to have come from the ranks of the poor and to be a man of the poor, but now, he is infected with the ugly anti-masa bias of the elite. Given the lack of employment opportunities in our country – thanks to governments like the one de Castro is serving – it is the poor who work doubly hard just to make ends meet. They are not lazy. They try and the system fails them. That’s why de Castro shouldn’t just demolish homes or evict residents when they are unable to pay loans to the government. It is blind bureaucrats, not leaders, who think that way.

God save the Philippines from people like Noli de Castro. His unmasking as anti-poor shows just how bootlicking for the Arroyo regime can change people who are otherwise nice and decent. He doesn’t want to say sorry? Well, sorry na lang siya (he should feel sorry for himself). We will not forget the views he has expressed. We vow to continue exposing his anti-poor record among our kababayans and to actively campaign against him this elections, whether he runs for president, vice-president or senator. ###