BY RAFAEL REYES 

Yet again, for the fourth time in a half-century life, our country is torn by deep political division. This time though, it’s different in a very salient way. The country has to deal with a real-world moral grey: Is the President’s robust course of action justifiable to address what the electorate has deemed is a serious problem amidst government institutions that are ineffective or seriously compromised? In the previous three national schisms--those directed against Presidents Marcos, Estrada, and Arroyo--there undeniably was a simple element of good vs. evil: the people rising up against demonstrably corrupt, repressive, and perhaps murderous regimes that conducted their activities for the personal gain of the powerful. (I exempt the first President Aquino, even though she was the subject of multiple coup attempts, as these never had popular support).

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