Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Update from the Chief

FROM: The Grand Pooh-Bah Luli A.
TO: The Luli Arroyo Internet Brigade
RE: The Fulfillment of Our Grand Plan

I think it’s time we took a breather and looked back on what we’ve accomplished in the past twelve months.

When I conceived the Luli Arroyo Internet Brigade, I saw a long fight ahead. I pictured sleepless nights replying point by point to every destabilizer-with-an-internet-connection. I looked at the task ahead, and despaired.

However, it’s taken surprisingly little effort to achieve our intended goals. Why? Because our enemies have been doing our job for us.

To wit:

The partnership between the Communists, the Cory faction, and the Erap/FPJ faction: a master-stroke in undermining credibility. I wish I could take credit for it, and I commend you, my agents, for keeping a straight face as Jinggoy and Cory stood together in solidarity against my mom. I wish I’d thought of putting Guingona and Erap back together, as if the impeachment never happened. They shot themselves in the foot – we didn’t even need to pull the trigger!

OK, so I thought we still had the Church to contend with – but my worries vanished when that Bishop fulsomely apologized to Erap for that little misunderstanding called Edsa II. Problem solved – and we didn’t even lift a finger!

Credibility-reducing hyperbole. And I thought I’d seen it all when Imee Marcos all but accused my mom of being a “liar and thief”. But when the destabilizers began to bandy around words like “worse than Martial Law” to refer to my mom’s presidency, I knew the movement had jumped the shark!

Mission accomplished? Hell no! There’s quite a ways to go. But it looks like they’re saving us the trouble: the more our opponents come out looking like they’ve forgotten to take their Tourette’s medication, the more their media sympathizers cry wolf, the more they substitute wacky conspiracy theories for astute analysis – all the more they defeat themselves!

Cringeworthy public appearances. We’ve already talked about the strange bedfellows of the Left and Right uniting against the government. Scratch that. I’m talking about the Black and White Movement’s regular Friday tea parties-cum-public protests. I’m talking about Maria Theresa Pangilinan throwing a tantrum at her own graduation. I’m talking about every single instance where the destabilizers get together to wave flags and choke traffic, and piss off the undecided who would otherwise be attracted to their cause.

The reactions to the people’s overwhelming non-reaction have come in two flavors – “Gloria’s people are working against us to keep us down”, or “Fuck the middle class, they can’t take a hint.” Neither of which are even close to the truth. But, brigadiers, we want them to keep believing this. We want them to keep believing that the Luli Arroyo Internet Brigade has been largely responsible for the utter silence that greets them every time they enter a Starbucks in a black shirt. We want them to believe they can “rearrange the furniture” around an apathetic middle class. The greater the gulf between the opposition and reality, the more successful we shall become!

Stay vigilant, my agents – in time, the opposition, for all intents and purposes, will BE the Luli Arroyo Internet Brigade!

Love and kisses,

LULI A. (My Mommy right or wrong!)


This directive was originally posted in Stepping on Poop.