Today, the Thai armed forces (or parts of it) have taken over the Thai government. The Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is in New York to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly. The Army Chief, General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, plus other military leaders, had apparently met the King to announce their takeover. Today is declared a holiday in that country.

News roundup regarding the coup: ABS-CBN has the latest summary of events; CNN has some highlights , here, and CNN is accepting email messages from people within Thailand for information. Read the emails here. I am excited by this development, the people sending information to a news network. CNN and BBC are cutoff in the country’s cable systems.

The variety of opinion expressed in the emails are interesting and expected.

A roundup and discussion by commenters at MLQ3’s blog here.

Many are wondering if what is happening in Thailand is possible here in this country. Unfortunately, the conditions in Thailand, though similar, are greatly divergent from ours. For one, the people of Thailand have one leader they revere enough to fall back on – the King (more on this later). We distrust all our leaders that many in the so-called middle class have decided to stick it out with the lesser evil; which has brought us in a circular motion, with no end in sight for the rut we are in. Also, Gloria Arroyo has firm control of the armed forces, and she has enough resources to quash down any attempt by any faction of the military to unseat her.

Let’s hope that the crisis in Thailand will be resolved in a peaceful manner.

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What if the King chose to dissociate himself from the coup? Will soldiers heed the Army Chief or the King? What if the King is held hostage, and made a puppet of the Army?

The armed forces of Thailand should be wise enough to know that suborning the King or undermining His Majesty’s prerogatives will not be be taken lightly by the people. Maybe that’s why the media is suppressed – to prevent the people from injecting themselves in the process. If they do, the coup will not be bloodless anymore. That’s how important the King is to the people.

Makes you wish we have someone like the King of Thailand to rally for.

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Remember Sigaw ng Malacanang’s tacky ads regarding Cha-cha and coups? In effect, they told us that a parliamentary system will end a cycle of coups in the country.

Mr. Lambino is a lawyer. He should know that engaging in does-not-follow fallacies will explode right in their faces. This major lie is exposed by what is happening in Thailand.

So you still believe in Lambino et al? Trying to fool the people, he now is the fool himself.

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Updates:

* The Wikipedia entry for Thailand has already been edited to reflect the current problem in that country. A new Wikipedia entry, 2006 Thailand coup d’état, has been created.

* The Web site of several Thai newspapers, including The Nation, continues to function. It seems there is only partial censorship (or maybe it is really hard to censor the Internet).