“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
―Friedrich Nietzsche
By Alex P. Vidal
WE are against the death penalty, and we can’t imagine watching government thieves, including Filipino political celebrities tainted by graft and corruption, being beheaded one by one if we have the death penalty—or if the government has fallen under the “Reign of Terror,” reminiscent of the French Revolution in 1789.
Even if we are very angry at the level of corruption allegedly committed by the likes of Zaldy Co, Martin Romualdez, Sara Duterte, Joel Villanueva, Bong Revilla, Chiz Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada, among other high and mighty political clan kings and queens linked to misuse of intelligence funds and flood control project anomalies, we reject any act of barbarism as a punitive measure.
Which probably explains why we can’t duplicate what happened recently in Indonesia and Nepal.
We still hold the record of owning the most peaceful revolution in history—the 1986 EDSA Revolution. There are rosaries and flowers, but no bloodbath when we drive away dictators, ruffians and plunderers.
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In Indonesia and Nepal, protesters against graft and corruption and abuse of power by government officials were willing to vandalize government facilities and infrastructures at all costs and execute rapacious and greedy public officials by hook or by crook.
Filipinos, the only Christian inhabitants in Asia, could hardly replicate it. Not even close to duplicating it.
On September 21, 2025, a small number of Pinoy “protesters” wanted to do what the Indonesians and Nepalese did to their governments but failed miserably because they weren’t legitimate rallyists agitating for genuine reforms and social justice.
They were bandits, gangsters and paid troublemakers who couldn’t even understand what they were fighting for, and why they needed to turn violent while marching toward the parameters of Malacanang.
Criminals can’t be reformers or dispensers of social justice.
When it comes to mob, we are good at assembling it in the guise of expressing or to seek redress for our legitimate grievances against massive graft and corruption and plunder, but as to the real objectives and mission, we aren’t united.
Going back to the guillotine. Many Filipinos continue to advocate for death penalty while a broad segment of the population spurns it mainly because of religious and cultural considerations.
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Now that graft and corruption has turned deadly, or is now in the level where the Philippines will almost collapse economically, many Filipinos have now openly expressed their pent-up outrage not only in the social media, but also in the streets—and we’re referring to legitimate protest actions being initiated by the multi-sectoral segments of society that continue to grow.
For a lot of people, a mention of the French Revolution conjures up images of wealthy nobles being led to the guillotine.
Many have been left with the impression the revolution was chiefly about chopping off the heads of kings, queens, dukes and other cashed-up aristocrats, thanks to countless movies, books and half-remembered history lessons, according to The Conversation.
The Bastille Day and what is known in French as Quatorze Juillet–a date commemorating events of July 14 in 1789 that came to symbolize the French Revolution—it’s worth correcting this common misconception.
In fact, most people executed during the French Revolution–and particularly in its perceived bloodiest era, the nine-month “Reign of Terror” between autumn 1793 and summer 1794–were commoners.
Among those who died under the “national razor” (the guillotine’s nickname) were King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, many revolutionary leaders such as Georges Danton, Louis de Saint-Just and Maximilien Robespierre. Scientist Antoine Lavoisier, pre-romantic poet Andre Chenier, feminist Olympe de Gouges and legendary lovers Camille and Lucie Desmoulins were among its victims.
But it wasn’t just “celebrities” executed at the guillotine.
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If we have the guillotine in the Philippines and the death penalty, those expected to be executed are politicians who have repeatedly stolen the taxpayers’ money by hundreds of millions and even billions.
There are the so-called “repeat offenders” who had spent years in jail for plunder and yet were able to wiggle out from their crimes against the taxpayers because of political affiliations and manipulations.
Politicians who enriched themselves while the people suffer from neglect, betrayal, and death like in the flood control project scandal. Those who collected mansions in the Philippines and abroad, bought imported vehicles worth hundreds of millions of pesos, private planes and yachts, among other pieces of evidence of opulence and mindless show of grandiosity.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Editor)
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