FORMER Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile recently posted on his Facebook page an unsolicited warning to his friends in government.
He said that the current national political situation in the country is nearly like to what happened before President Marcos declared Martial Law 49 years ago in 1972.
The warning sounded like an appeal to his friends in government to take consideration of the situation of the people of the country, whom he described as hapless and innocent pawns at the center of the looming power confrontation.
He appealed that those from the contending forces use their brilliant minds to analyze the political situation and avoid the eruption of an unintended and unwanted civil strife.
Last week, Vice President Leni Robredo in her statement also appealed to the palace not to use the military to “intimidate” the voters in the forthcoming national elections in May next year.
However, administration supporters cited that PNP forces are needed in election hot spot areas.
The former senator’s warning came out in the context that the national election is gearing to an intense battle between pro-Duterte forces and the liberal opposition.
The grizzled politician believed that the elections are shaping on the following main themes or issues; the first basically as a referendum on the pandemic response, second, on concrete plans and actions for economic recovery devastated by the pandemic, third, on massive corruption, fourth, on human rights issues brought about war on drugs, and the last, the ultimate relations with China and the US.
Also, under the prevailing condition of the pandemic, the country’s economy is leading to a prolonged snail paced development.
It has yet to regain its footing from the recent lock-down response to curb the highly contagious covid19 Delta variant that spiked the infection and transmission in the past two months.
He is afraid that a major political crisis will only further sink the country's economy to the abyss.
Likewise a staggering economic situation will further fan the flames of a political situation towards a crisis.
At a given juncture both political and economic crisis will meet to ignite a social upheaval.
Although the warning is not directed to the opposition, but the same holds true for them.
For the better sense of it, the opposition should stick to their campaign strategy and tactics and not to play with the idea or toy with a destabilization move at this point in time.
Senator Enrile is seasoned, politician, lawmaker, statesman and also the engineer of the 1972 Martial Law.
He sees and sense something that we don’t know. His warning should not be taken lightly.