Mene! Tekel! Parsin!

39-20080226

TO LIGHT A FIRE!

Just like loyal the courtiers as well as critics and enemies of their inordinately proud and corrupt Chaldean King Belshazzar who inherited the throne from his father Nebuchadnezzar, GMA’s own loyal retinue of courtiers and persistently contentious critics are now trying to interpret similar on-going mystical writings-on-the-walls.

These dire latter day warnings are not just on the walls of Malacañang so to speak, but are now in fact spreading throughout Metro Manila, the provinces and even in big cities abroad where our OFWs abound.

The warnings are in fact everywhere -- not just in the conference halls of the Senate, or in the offices of the Department of In-Justice or of the Ombudslady-in-waiting, but also in the streets, the market places, among the very young in our schools and universities, in Rome, New York, Hongkong, the Middle East, London, and in Cyberspace especially.

The prophet Daniel’s interpretation as spelled out in Scriptures for those direst of dire warnings which soon came true against King Belshazzar must be well-known somehow, at least in its general sense, to most of those who will read this piece. And so I believe that practically every prominent political foe of GMA as well as some of her sympathizers, have the same general interpretation vis-à-vis our present national signs of the times. And that would be consisting mostly of an impending political disaster for GMA, for her family and her allies.

I dare say that such an exclusively political and anti-GMA interpretation is at best half-baked! And so despite my being a consistent critic of GMA for the last ten (10) years, I must state what I truly believe in -- that these present-day dire warnings are not just political nor for GMA exclusively. These are in fact all addressed to and meant explicitly for EVERYBODY including all of her enemies and critics as well, including yours truly; And its sunstance is for more encompassing in their ramifications.

For if we look back at the sad distant as well as recent history of the remains of Belshazzar’s Babylon of some 2,700 years ago and subsequent to Daniel’s prophetic warnings and viewed, particularly in the light of the Iraqis’ 20^th and 21^st century history, Daniel’s prophetic interpretations must have been meant for and addressed to all of Iraq’s men, women and children, particularly with respect to the present inhabitants of Iraq now hopelessly divided by hate and ravaged by war.

It was the same for the French people for many years, starting from the gathering storms of civil unrest just before the Napoleonic wars and the French revolution. So too with the Americans of the mid-19^th century; and the Germans and Italians prior to World War I and World War II. All of them had their own evil and shameless Rogues Gallery of political, business and religious leaders as well.

The central fact I wish to bring out therefore, is that it was not just those big bad tyrants and evil-prone leaders like Saddam Hussein, Hitler and Mussolini who suffered ignominious fates. Abraham Lincoln, who may have been a saint, (relatively at least, in comparison with his successors!) was for a while also widely maligned and eventually assassinated.

But more significantly however, in all the above historical cases, the people suffered much longer and far more acutely than their deposed leaders.

For that is exactly what I am truly afraid of for us Filipinos today! Unless we listen more humbly and more discerningly to the dire warning signs of the times and handwritings on our walls, the aftermath of EDSA One and EDSA Two, could be a mere walk-in-the-park compared to what is in store for the Philippines these coming years.

And so in the spirit of real humility, personal contrition and honest facing of the painful truth about ourselves above all, I believe that we the supposedly elite and better educated but certainly more materially well-off and socially better positioned, must accept the major portion of the blame as to why the Marcoses, the Erap Estradas and the Macapagal-Arroyos have not been prevented from pillaging and despoiling our nation’s material and moral heritage. Truth to tell, many of us even among GMA’s present-day critics, have knowingly conspired and have unduly benefited from such pillaging and despoiling of our nation. If once again today, we feign innocence and reject such a call coming from many of our Church leaders, for humbling contrition and moral restitution, I am afraid that the Marian prophecies and similar apocalyptic warnings from Direction For Our Times, both of which are consistent with those in Matthew 24 and Zechariah 13 particularly for these our present times, might also soon come true just like Daniel’s judgment and prophecy were imposed on the Babylonian empire’s people up to this day.

For could it be that our own short remaining days are already numbered (Mene!)?Or that we have been weighed as a people and found wanting (Tekel!); and the impending dismemberment of our nation and division by political dissension and civil war is at hand (Parsin!).