Ruling Party Unveils 5-Year Plan to Annihilate Opposition Through Aggressive Committee Reassignments
| Kehinde Oduya Breaking News Writer |
Vowing to secure total and everlasting victory for the ruling Lakas Kampi CMD party, senior officials announced Saturday an ambitious five-year initiative to systematically eliminate all political opposition by reassigning them to legislative subcommittees.
"By 2014, there will be nothing left of the opposition," said party chairman Gilberto Teodoro, drawing a slow finger across his throat before clarifying he meant the Subcommittee on Provincial Irrigation Standards. "They will be finished and buried in the procedural sense."
The announcement, delivered to a standing ovation from the 400-member caucus, outlined a four-phase strategy party officials described as "merciless" and "logistically front-loaded."
Under Phase One, opposition lawmakers will be stripped of all committee assignments related to budget and foreign relations, and reassigned exclusively to the newly created Joint Committee on Agricultural Signage Compliance, which meets biannually in a converted supply closet.
"We will hunt them down," said Secretary-General Gabriel Claudio, pounding his fist on the podium.
Phase Two, described internally as the Reckoning, involves rescheduling all opposition-sponsored bills to committee hearings that conflict with national holidays and, in six confirmed cases, each other.
Former president Fidel Ramos, whose presence at the caucus was seen by analysts as a symbolic show of party unity, told reporters he had personally pushed for a more aggressive timeline as early as 2012.
"Two extra years is two years too many," Ramos said. "I want them politically dead by Christmas."
When asked to clarify what "politically dead" meant in practical terms, Ramos said it meant being "unable to secure a hearing room with working air conditioning," adding, "but yes, dead."
Party officials confirmed the plan also includes a controversial provision requiring all opposition press releases to be printed exclusively on the office's sole inkjet printer, which has not accepted color cartridges since 2006.
"This is total war," said Claudio. "Total, bloodless, extremely tedious war."
At press time, three opposition lawmakers had been eliminated after failing to renew their parking permits, and Teodoro was seen practicing his throat-slicing gesture in a hallway mirror ahead of Monday's press conference. ■
