S1L12 – How BENECO’s valiant MCO’s are like Masadans, outnumbered but not outfought
The siege of Masada was one of the final events in the First Jewish–Roman War which raged from 73 to 74 A.D.
On a high plateau above the plains of modern-day Israel, a small community of about 900 Hasmonean Jews took their last stand against a formidable Roman army that was overwhelmingly poised to dispossess them of their last foothold on the Holy Land.
The Jews, on the other hand, were determined to stop the invincible Roman war machine from taking away something they had painstakingly built. If they must lose their land, then they shall lose their lives. They will be overcome and annihilated, but they will not be conquered.
The Romans outnumbered them in both men and beasts. There were more horses and chariots in the Roman garrison than there were households atop the hill of Masada.
In truth, the Romans could wipe out Masada in a matter of hours by simply pounding it with huge boulders hurled from catapults. But they wanted to make the Jews suffer first, tantalizing them with offers to surrender, to capitulate and end their suffering by agreeing to be enslaved. The Jews held firm as the Romans ratcheted up the long siege.
The Romans began to literally squeeze the life out of Masada bit by painful bit, poisoning their water supply, cutting off food lines. Even when it rained, the Romans would build huge fires to fill the skies with floating ash so all the Jews could gather in stone jars was acid rain. Then for three months, Roman soldiers built a ramp across which they would drive a wheeled battering ram to break open Masada’s gates. They even bore a hole on the wall behind which the Jews had stored some grain. As the grain spilled out over the cliffsides, well-fed Roman centurions celebrated the instant famine they were able to inflict on the Jews.
Finally, emaciated, thirsty and hungry, the Jews grew too weak to even lift their swords—except for one last time: to thrust these swords right through their hearts. But not before they had first thrust them into the hearts of their wives and children, as they all hugged one another and, as one courageous people, prayed and drew their last breaths together.
When the Romans finally breached Masada’s walls, and prepared to slaughter everybody, they found not one single Jew to kill. In anguished remorse and shaking awe at the undying spirit of their vanquished foe, one Roman general cried, “Why have you done this? Why have you destroyed yourselves?”
But the next general said, “They destroyed nothing. They built a legacy. And now we can destroy nothing. We shall all be forgotten, relegated to infamy. But they—they shall live forever in faultless memory.”
Blitzkriegs are thwarted easy. But a siege is far greater cruelty, and its cruelty mostly happens out of sight. Just like what is happening in BENECO. NEA is slowly squeezing the life out of this cooperative, but out of sight of the public eye mostly.
While magnanimously projecting an image of a long-suffering regulator, ostensibly with the temperance of a spurned authority, it actually never let up on its vicious assault. It has goaded the police “to bodily drag away” anyone who resists, it had been putting pressure on banks to freeze the coop’s accounts—but not before helping itself to one million pesos in unliquidated withdrawal. It is working in earnest to set up a shadow parallel collection system. Already it is succeeding in ramping up delinquency by confusing consumers, or giving them cause to delay paying their bills.
Eventually, it will succeed in depleting the coop’s cash reserves while impairing its ability to replenish. Somebody in Manila knows that if soon the coop fails to make the payroll, many employees would have no means to feed their own families.
Does it hope that eventually, this will break the spirit of even the most zealous defender and demoralize the most committed MCO? Meanwhile, troops are kept on the ready for any sign that the besieged is growing faint.
The original contention was that this much interference from NEA would only be legally tenable if BENECO was failing. Evidently NEA was quick to pick up that logic. The best way to take over BENECO is to simply make it fail.
Still the lot of the people are in blissful stupor. Many still monitor what’s happening in BENECO by flicking a switch. So long as the power still comes on, the valiant “Masadans” will continue to fight this lonely hidden battle as hard as they can, for as long as they can, by the sheer strength of their will and the unyielding endurance of their faith.
Hopefully, the people would elect a new president with a heart come May before the “Masadans” all, too, fade away.
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”