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Year of the Fire Pig
IT’S A YEAR FOR GLORIA?
By: FRED C. AMORA
Published: December 31, 2006 by The Bohol Standard

Better start believing in Astrology and the Chinese Horoscope.

It says, the New Year 2007, Year of the Fire Pig will witness the rising of dominant figures born under this sign that are vivid, and cannot be deterred from a goal once they have set it.

While some may call the Pig lazy, more accurately the pig is a predator, simply biding its time for the opportunity. Once in motion, the Pig is unstoppable.

And to prepare for the shock of our lives, one should take note that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is among those born in one of the cyclical Years of the Pig.

She was born July 13, 1947 in Manila and is the daughter of another Philippine President, the late Diosdado Macapagal (1910-1997).

Certified pig years have been 1911, 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995 and this year 2007.

Although Arroyo’s administration continues to reel from the question of legitimacy shrouded by alleged massive cheating in the May 2004 elections, this woman-president sees an end to the political instability in the country, by persistent pushing for constitutional revision.

Danger
Critics, however, see the charter change as a move to perpetuate Arroyo’s rule after her 2010 term limit.

Yet, feng shui experts warn not to cross the path of a Fire Pig.

These individuals have the ability to be quite abrasive when things don’t turn out as they planned.

Under the Arroyo administration (since 2001 when she succeeded the deposed president Joseph Estrada) the Amnesty International listed 362 political killings in the country. The Philippines had also become the most dangerous place for journalists with 71 murdered; most of them remaining unsolved. The First Gentleman Mike Arroyo had also slapped libel cases against 42 journalists critical to his wife’s administration.

Crafty
Former Bohol OIC Governor Atty. Victor de la Serna said Arroyo will again attempt in this Year of the Fire Pig to let the people bite a sugar-coated bait as she would craftily insert in the May 2007 mid-term election a referendum that will revive the people’s initiative to change the constitution.

The bar topnotcher lawyer and staunch Arroyo critic, said in a radio interview with commentator Batchoy Alba over DyRD, that the referendum will just be the first phase of a grandiose plan to install Arroyo as a perpetual ruler of this country.

As noted in the October 25, 2006 Supreme Court 8-7 decision junking the first attempt of pushing a people’s initiative to amend the constitution, the High Court merely saw, based on an assessment, that the more than 6,000,000 signatures were deceptively gathered and was unlikely a gigantic fraud.

In the referendum, the question would likely be just YES or NO for a change of government system, from bicameral to a unicameral form that will abolish the Senate and establish just one House of Parliament.

With the YES vote, the people’s initiative will acquire a legitimate image and the charter change will then push through using the same proposals earlier prepared by an Arroyo-appointed technical working group.

Arroyo will be installed as the Prime Minister and with a parliament under her control, they will be masters of the nation, setting aside the term limits to their satisfaction.

Elections will only be called if they want to, De la Serna said.

Destiny
What connects Arroyo to Joseph Estrada (1935- ), Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), and Lee Kwan-Yew (1923- ) is that they were all born in one of the cyclical Years of the Pig. Another prominent woman is Hillary Rodham Clinton, (born in Chicago on October 26, 1947), United States lawyer and politician, First Lady of US president Bill Clinton, and now Senator for New York (2001- ). She became a powerful symbol of the potent role and status of women in society.

To find out previous Pig Years just keep subtracting 12 from 1995. China: 1911 saw the overthrow of the Qing dynasty (Xinhai Revolution), and in the same year, on the other side of the globe, Italy declared war against Turkey leading to World War 1, three years later. Fidel Castro grabbed power in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution; while in 1971, Lin Biao, comrade-in-arms and heir apparent of Mao Zedong, chairman of the Communist Party of China died in mysterious circumstances.

Those years, all in the cyclical Years of the Pig, brought the world’s most shocking political upheavals recorded in history.

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