Were you, like us, surprised when Gloria suddenly became a human rights warrior? Don’t know what we’re talking about?
Well here’s the story: Gloria was in Singapore this week to attend the ASEAN summit. During the summit, she suddenly went, “Yo! Myanmar military junta, the Philippines won’t vote for the ASEAN charter if you don’t release Aung San Suu Kyi.”
Dude, she really acted like our high school principal. Or, for those of you who don’t give a damn about our principal, she acted like Dolores Umbridge in that last Harry Potter movie.
Now, because the Myanmar generals don’t like being patronized by a toady Dolores Umbridge-wannabe, they got bat-shit crazy and went, “Shut up you fake President of 7,107 irrelevant islands.”
Well, the generals didn’t really say that but they did something which, we’re sure, left Gloria hoping for those words instead. What is worse than being reminded that she wasn’t voted President? Being ignored like a non-entity. Yup the Myanmar (Myanmarese?) junta simply ignored her blabberings. And the other ASEAN leaders ignored her as well.
It must have been a sad day for Gloria. She thought that her words would carry weight but ASEAN and the world went, “Eh”. There goes her delusions that she’s a world player in the game of geopolitics.
(Hey, did we just say geopolotics? Don’t ever ask us what that means. It just feels like the right word to use so we typed it. Also, using a word like that is our way of putting you on notice that we are not above using big words which we ourselves don’t understand so you will think that we’re some kind of a “pundit”.)
But, as we were saying, the ASEAN leaders ignored Gloria in the same way that you ignore the senseless yakking of a sinto-sinto. But, to keep things interesting, let’s keep score on this human rights tussle and hope that there will be more to come. The current score stands thus, Myanmar: 1 vs. Gloria: 0.
We, of course, feel bad for Aung San Suu Kyi. We’re sure you’ll agree that she should have been released as far back as the day she was arrested. And Gloria should have been protesting as early as then. Nowadays, we’re not sure if Gloria — she with a very bad human rights record — is helping Suu Kyi’s cause.
To use an overused cliche, Gloria demanding that other leaders respect human rights is like the pot calling the kettle black. Or in French, “La pelle se moque du fourgon.” Hah, we had to go get that French thing from wikipedia. The things we do to become some kind of a “pundit”, no.
lol, ganda naman ng mga big words mo! :) Myanmar used to be Burma, right? So the people of Myanmar are still called Burmese, or were you just being sarcastic about that Myanmarese thing? anyway, I had a language helper from Myanmar when I studied one of the Chin language of theirs, and Burmese is what she calls herself.
btw, bigla akong naawa kay gloria… lol! napahiya siya ng ganun? di kaya parang pinas din ang napahiya?
Hi Ganda,
Oy thanks for joining us here :-) You’re right about Myanmar/Burma. May controversy yata ang pagpalit ng pangalan. I was told that they changed it to include the other peoples (majority yata ang Burmese but there are other minority groups).
But then the change was dictated by the military junta so siyempre may resistance. I think its okay to call the Burmese majority, Burmese. But what do we call all the people of Myanmar. Kumbaga, ano ang equivalent nila for “Filipino”? Iyan ang hindi ko alam :-)
Yup, actually nakakaawa siya on a personal level. At siyempre, Pinas din ang napahiya. Eh mukhang kulang kasi ng groundwork bago siya nag-salita. She (or the DFA) should have first worked silently to get the commitment of other countries (kung meron mang interested because the ASEAN really doesn’t talk about human rights) before she goes blurting out a statement like that. Eh mukhang gusto niyang magpa-starring. Kaya ayon…
Now what if other countries do the same thing and state that they won’t sign the ASEAN charter unless the Philippines improves its human rights record? Eh di pahiya si Gloria.
Thanks again :-)