One kleptocracy after another

“Patay kung patay!” The words screamed from the banner of the Pinoy Times Saturday-only special in 2001, the day Luis “Chavit” Singson went for the jugular and called for Joseph Estrada’s ouster. I should know. I was an editor of that scrappy political tabloid, the one that bled ink and fury every weekend until the edifice of Erap’s presidency cracked under its own weight.

The air was thick with rumor, anger and adrenaline. Doing the investigative spade work Monday to Thursday, every Friday — when we put the specials (later printed in book form) to bed — felt like a countdown, every headline a drumbeat toward Erap’s inevitable fall.

And now, Chavit Singson has returned to the stage he knows only too well. On Friday, he strode into Club Filipino, the same hall where Cory Aquino took her oath in 1986, the same hall where he detonated Estrada’s presidency in 2001 — to call for a “peaceful revolution” against Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Chavit knows the power of setting, of scene. Club Filipino is not just a venue; it is a reliquary, a shrine where political plotting is baptized as people’s revolt. But Chavit is no Cory.

Cory was a reluctant leader, a widow pushed to the frontlines by the people themselves, who turned grief into a movement and decency into a sword. Her call for civil disobedience sought to starve the Marcos Sr. regime of money by refusing to pay a corrupt state its dues. She gave a nation a nonviolent path to freedom.

Chavit, on the other hand, has always been a colorful character from another play entirely: Tigers, cockfights, Miss Universe pageants; the perennial ally of every president, until he isn’t. Colorful, yes; revolutionary, no.

This time, he casts Marcos Jr. as a “weak” president presiding over a rotten state. He points to the flood control scandal — billions siphoned off into ghost projects by favored contractors — as Exhibit A of the moral decay. He even dares to say the perfidy traces back to Ilocos Norte, Marcos’ very turf. That is bold talk, if also laced with the bitterness of an ally spurned.

But his prescription? Students should boycott classes until corrupt officials resign. March if you must, he adds, but don’t get into trouble, as you might get hurt. He even suggests the children of soldiers and policemen join in, as if that were a magic talisman against violence.

Jakarta, Kathmandu and Manila itself: we have seen how protests turn, how quickly they dissolve into tear gas and truncheons, how easily the poor end up as cannon fodder while the rich retreat to their sanctuaries. Ordinary folk take the beatings, the bullets, the jail time. The elite hold their presscons at Club Filipino.

And Club Filipino itself — once a crucible of defiance — no longer carries the same spell. Founded in 1898 as a playground of mestizo gentlemen, it has always been a stage for the privileged, the perfumed lot. From its Santa Mesa mansion to its Greenhills hall, it has lent gravitas to political theater.

Today, Club Filipino’s chandeliers flicker like those of a country club that has seen better days, its symbolism faded, its stage more mausoleum than movement. The youth Chavit beckons do not gather there. They rally in the streets, yes, but they also mass online, in spaces far beyond the billionaire’s imagination.

Today, the anger is real, and the outrage against the government of Marcos Jr. is well-justified. But the question hangs heavy in the air: do we have the appetite to be pawns once more, to bleed and march and risk everything, only to see one kleptocracy toppled — so another can take its place?