HE said — SHE said

National Youth Commission (NYC) chairman Ronald Cardema was a plaintive sight with his seven men who posed themselves as the organization now known as the Duterte Youth even without sanction from President Rodrigo Duterte himself.

That was during a massive rally organized by mass movements and the opposition to criticize government’s anti-illegal drugs policy and the spate of deaths, allegedly through extrajudicial killings which government had denied and rebuked.

But Cardema’s presence there was an abomination even if he had only tried to express his own political sentiments, along with his seven friends.

Cardema and his seven friends have been regular fixtures in opposition-led rallies since then.

This rubbernecker has no problem with that, it is his right to speak and express his thoughts, political or plain nonsense, in whatever platform and venue. Give it to him.

For others, like the musician Jim Paredes, Cardema was an eyesore in those rallies. But Paredes could and should not stop Cardema from exercising his rights. He was wrong when he confronted Cardema in his face, along with Cardema’s seven friends.

Nilo Tayag, once a communist who turned his back on the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 and then the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-1969 (Yes, there are two communist parties existing in the Philippines aside from the various other splinter groups), was once the Cardema of his time.

“What is evident is his ambition of becoming a top political fixture and he is banking on a tough ultra-right political stance when his sojourn with the Left had failed.

Eli Pamatong, once a presidential candidate who calls himself the US-appointed president of the Philippines, was also a pathetic sight with more men armed with batons at his disposal.

Once, I personally saw Pamatong’s men beating the hell out of scampering protesters with sticks as they tried to extricate themselves from a police dispersal in front of the US Embassy on Roxas Boulevard. They act like a militia, which they are.

There are more like Tayag and Pamatong here and there, their relevance less than the two.

But those stints by Cardema put him on national spotlight. Eventually, he was appointed to the NYC following Aiza Seguerra’s resignation. That was the greatest event to happen in Cardema’s life.

He was not a success as a student. He was ejected from the University of the Philippines system – both from Diliman and Los Baños. Then, he was expelled from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).

His expulsion from the top university was carried out for various reasons. At the UP, it was because of academics. In the PMA, he was found to have colluded with communists and once even hailed then Navy Capt. Antonio Trillanes for his bravery in orchestrating a coup against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Cardema once claimed law enforcement officials killed his uncle, Noel Capulong, deputy regional coordinator of BAYAN Southern Tagalog, where Cardema grew up and attended school most of his life as a native of Laguna.

Last week, Cardema asked President Duterte to revoke the scholarship of students joining mass organizations and rallies. His remark was quickly rebuffed by the Palace.

Cardema was asked to resign from the NYC by not a few government officials, including lawmakers who joined civilian groups in calling for Cardema’s head.

Then Cardema made a turnaround. He later said he only wanted students who joined the rebel movement, particularly the CPP-New People’s Army (NPA), to have their scholarships stripped off.

Cardema could have been speaking from his behind when he said that. He did not realize these young students, including the young UPLB idealist who sacrificed his life for his conviction, have decided to leave everything behind when they joined the NPA.

That this will come from Cardema only repeats Tayag’s story and the many others who have left the Left (or any other political organization) and dreamed about being bigger than themselves.

Cardema was a member of the League of Filipino Students (LFS). There is nothing wrong with that.

Even President Duterte claimed he was once a member of the Kabataang Makabayan, from which the strength of the CPP-NPA was anchored on at the height of the Marcos dictatorship, until its membership spread like wildfire among factory workers, university professors and everywhere.

Cardema also used his LFS membership as a connection when he communicated with CPP founder Joma Sison to inquire about his plan to organize a “paramilitary force.”

It is such a big but dangerous dream. We’ve seen people who did this in some countries who were later exposed as nuts.

There is also nothing wrong with being a communist or espousing Left ideas. Last time we checked, it is not forbidden in this country. But bearing arms is, and that is another story.

It is not clear yet what past or part of his life is haunting Cardema. What is evident is his ambition of becoming a top political fixture and he is banking on a tough ultra-right political stance when his sojourn with the Left had failed.

What is also clear is that Cardema is a joke or anything less than it.

EDSA may have lost its meaning for many, as I would assume from the ever-decreasing efforts to celebrate what it meant to us, Filipinos, over 30 years ago, but I have a feeling the urge to make it happen at that point in time still lives inside of us.

A spark of that courage to rise up against any form of dictatorship — anyone who would impinge on freedoms we sadly take for granted — flickered when the head of the National Youth Commission (NYC) last week recommended to President Duterte that “students participating in anti-state protests, especially those allied with communist rebels, should lose their scholarships.”

NYC chairperson Ronald Cardema got a little taste of it when he suggested that Duterte should issue an Executive Order “removing the government scholarships of all anti-government scholars, specifically those students who are allied with the leftist CPP-NPA-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front).”

There was flak coming to him from student organizations and lawmakers, naturally. I mean, he cannot say something like that and expect applause, can he?

Tell anyone, hey, you don’t deserve to get an education because you are speaking up for yourself. Would you expect that person to sink into a sorry heap, begging for forgiveness?

Frankly, it was a little surprising coming from a former League of Filipino Students member.

Then again, it was not because he was the “leader of Duterte Youth, a group that made headlines in 2017 for confronting OPM icon Jim Paredes, a staunch critic of the President, during the anniversary celebration of the 1986 People Power Revolution in EDSA.”

In the spirit of democracy, let us understand Cardema — he is obviously being loyal to his boss. For him, students who are getting financial assistance should not bite the hand that feeds them.

In his statement, acting against the government is like “fighting the majority of the Filipino people and also not fulfilling their roles as the expected breadwinners who will uplift their families and hope in strengthening the country.”

But President Duterte is not “government” and the money used for these scholarships does not come from his pockets. If students who are learning to be effective citizens of the Philippines find themselves going against some aspect of government today, does that mean they should stop getting an education?

What he said goes against the grain of freedom-loving individuals whose vision of a democracy is one in which people, no matter their beliefs, can peacefully coexist.

Unlike Mr. Cardona, my fellow columnist in this space, I was not an activist in my youth. While he found himself on EDSA in 1986, I was listening to the Benedictine nuns in our school reporting about the events happening in Metro Manila during those turbulent times under the Marcos regime.

A year later, as a college freshman at the University of the Philippines, my fellow Albayanos who were also staying in Kalayaan dorm were gathered together by our orgmates from Bicolandia, who wanted to make sure we were not hiding under our beds when the planes kept flying above us during one of those coup d’etat scares under the Cory Aquino regime.

“In the spirit of democracy, let us understand Cardema — he is obviously being loyal to his boss.

It doesn’t take an activist past to have a strong reaction against what is perceived as a narrow-mindedness and inability to handle dissent with composure.

In a Philippine News Agency report, he was quoted as saying, in Filipino: “There is no law or charter for those who want to bring down the government.” It sounded like a rallying cry.

It was off-putting to hear it from someone heading an agency that is supposed to uphold the welfare of the youth.

If the problem is those leftist organizations, why not address them and not punish the youth who are learning many things, but certainly not everything from within the classrooms or campuses?

What Cardema may have missed, in his fervor to defend government, is that people will always push for their rights. If no one speaks out against issues like high tuition, drug-testing of elementary students or imprisonment of pre-teens, then how can government know that its actions may be overlooking some basic rights?

A democracy is not a dictatorship — don’t we all know this by know after what happened in 1986?

Whatever the EDSA Revolution means to anyone then, after all that has happened three decades hence, one thing will always be true about it: you cannot douse fire when you are the fuel.