E-Lagda Anyone?

Back in the year 2000, at the height of the Erap controversy, I received an invitation to join the e-group, e-lagda. It was headed by a man named Enteng Romano. The e-group aimed to gather a million electronic signatures to form part of a petition to pressure Erap into resigning. I joined the group because like most Filipinos I was tired of Erap and his schemes. I'm proud of that e-group. We received messages from Mr. Romano asking us to forward letters to the e-mail addresses of senators to let them know that we were watching them as they conducted the impeachment trial. Most of the messages sent to the senators bounced back but we felt that it was an achievement because we succeeded in flooding the inboxes of the senators.

E-lagda was not able to deliver the million signatures. But it succeeded nonetheless in forcing Erap to resign.

Eight years later, we find ourselves in a similar situation. Our government is in the middle of several controversies again. People are asking for different things - some want GMA to resign, some want snap elections to take place, some are just indifferent. I'm pretty sure that people want to know the truth and they want change. But I don't think we'll ever achieve anything if we remain divided and if we continue asking for different things. Perhaps we need another e-lagda or someone like Enteng Romano to help unify the people. An e-group might not be able to do so much but we have to start somewhere and I'd say that it is worth a try.