“Eye for an Eye: When Systemic Betrayal
and the Moral Bankrupcy of Power Breeds Rebellion”
By Kat Ulrike
Pardon for being too direct, for if crooks in the bureaucracy and in the legislature are able to abuse public trust and siphon off the people’s money with impunity, one might, regrettably, argue that the people themselves have a moral claim to reclaim what is theirs—akin to the infamous Tiflis bank robbery orchestrated under Stalin’s direction. Call it “eye for an eye” if you will; thank heavens society at large has mostly turned a blind eye to such impulses. Yet for the marginalized and the impoverished, who have endured endless exploitation and systemic neglect, the temptation to act may arise at any moment, far exceeding the unrest witnessed during the Mendiola riots amid the September 21 protest action. How could this note be written in such a way? At first glance, it may sound threatening, but it speaks to a reality the masses have long recognized: populism as practiced by the elite treats short-term fixes as mere “salves” to soothe popular anger without addressing the structural injustices beneath. The elites offer a loaf of bread in one hand, feigning concern and generosity, while the other wields a metaphorical big stick—the inconvenient truth that the people are meant to endure systemic injustice, cloaked under the guise of law. That bread represents temporary, superficial solutions, while the big stick symbolizes the harsh realities and punitive measures that reinforce the very inequalities they claim to remedy.
Indeed, the populism the elite peddle is a hollow, pretentious performance, a tool for consolidating their own interests and, often, for lining their pockets amid the ever-present cycle of corruption scandals. For those who suffer the consequences of these betrayals—the scandals, the embezzlements, the abuses of power—the so-called “rule of law” may appear less like protection and more like a mechanism to enforce compliance while shielding the guilty. Meanwhile, the so-called “thinking class” continues to pontificate about the sanctity of the rule of law, insisting that justice must be pursued through orderly channels. But the masses, who shoulder the real cost of disorder and state incompetence, increasingly find themselves trapped in a liminal space of neither law nor heaven. They are implicated in every form of societal disruption, yet left unprotected against the systemic abuse that perpetuates their suffering.
And as a concerned observer of this “neither law nor heaven” scenario, one cannot ignore that the people, pushed to the brink by systemic betrayal, may find justification in actions the state would label as “crime.” As Louise Michel said: “The people will rise. They may be oppressed, imprisoned, punished, but they will rise again, for injustice is intolerable.” When the structures meant to safeguard justice themselves perpetuate injustice, the moral line between legality and righteousness blurs. In such a context, popular outrage is not mere chaos—it is the predictable, human response to a society that has long ignored their suffering. And the state would be wise not to underestimate this potential for upheaval, for the consequences of ignoring both the abuses of the elite and the grievances of the masses may one day reach a scale that even the most powerful cannot contain. Of course they would hear to and fro the relevance of Gandhi's Amhisa, or Rizal's need for education and character building, but, reality becomes Malcolm X's "by any means necessarily"; and if they hear about Francis Magalona's "You can't talk peace and have a gun" end rather like Yasser Arafat's "Do not let the green branch fall from my hand" quote.
The events of September 21 and the subsequent imprisonment of politically aware youth—dismissed by some as “used” or expendable—could easily become a spark, a catalyst for outrage. God forbid it comes to that, yet history and reality have repeatedly exposed the double standard: “The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.” This hypocrisy is compounded by bureaucrats who, having siphoned the coffers of the people, turn around to arrest those who merely demand a loaf of bread. In such a climate of systemic theft masquerading as governance, acts of expropriation—what the state labels “thievery”—become not only foreseeable but, in the eyes of the oppressed, morally justified as peaceful demands and righteous anger be replied with repression- making the line between legality and righteousness blur. As Stalin once remarked, “The only real power is that which is seized and defended by force; property stolen from the exploiters is never theft.” Indeed, the very order the state claims to uphold risks igniting the disorder it professes to fear.
If the people genuinely desire the rule of law to prevail, then the law must reflect the will of the people. Otherwise, it becomes little more than an opiate peddled by the elite—no different from the distractions of the media, the superficialities of the arts, or, in earlier times, the dogmas of religion—used to pacify the masses while consolidating power and protecting privilege. Law divorced from popular interest ceases to be a safeguard of justice; it becomes a tool of control, a veneer of legitimacy covering the systematic exploitation of those it claims to serve.