Overwhelming stench of corruption

It is impossible to get away from the topic. Daily hearings in the Senate and Congress resonate with thunderous allegations of large-scale corruption involving elected officials, unscrupulous public works officials and contractors. It is so nauseating that you feel like throwing up, but the proceedings grip you with the desire to know more about the personalities involved in this quicksand that threatens to drag us all into the quagmire.

- RAYMUND W. LO, MD, FPSP

People are aroused, indignant and voicing their displeasure on social media but more importantly, they’re starting to move physically. Civic organizations and church leaders have issued manifestos and scheduled rallies. Now, we're seeing mass actions.

But as usual, it is the youth that rises to the occasion. Students in UP Diliman and UP Manila were the first to stage rallies denouncing the systematic looting of the national treasury. It calls to mind my student days in UP Diliman in the late 60s when not a day passes without a mass movement or another being staged or announced. The youth have always been at the forefront of protests, naturally since it is they who are and will be most affected by the nefarious goings-on in government. While their whole future lies ahead, older folks are settling down and are content to reminisce the good old days, if ever they were.

Those protest rallies, demonstrations, marches and sit-downs of the past will surely be repeated with the same fervor and anger that characterized previous movements. It hasn’t come to the point of violent demonstrations like what we saw in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal where the protesters clashed with police, stormed and burned government buildings, ransacked houses of parliament members and set people on fire.