HEY JOE
Crimebuster Arroyo hypes it up
By Ted Lerner

"The problem with Mrs Arroyo," said the Chinese-Filipino hardware-store owner, pointing to the morning newspaper and the picture of the Philippine president posing next to the bullet-ridden, dead body of a wanted leader of a kidnap-for-ransom gang, "is that she doesn't appear to be sincere. It's all a show. It's all so she can be elected in 2004."

Faced with spreading lawlessness in almost every form, it is a common picture the Philippine public sees of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo these days. In her July State of the Nation address she vowed to crush criminality in an all-out assault that would spare nothing and nobody, whether they be big fish or small fish, rich or poor. And sure enough, within hours of her bold pronouncement, she set out to prove to a fed-up public that it was indeed true.

Seemingly every day since, the papers and televisions have been filled with images of Arroyo literally taking a hands-on approach to fighting crime. One day it's Arroyo standing by a car with three bullet-ridden suspected kidnappers. Another day Arroyo is sitting in front of a gang of robbers and a table full of high-powered arms supposedly recovered by the police. And then it's on to the headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), where she presents suspects in a tax-diversion case. Another day she's standing next to a haul of marijuana plants as her top law enforcers burn the stash and try to make sure she doesn't inhale the smoke and get high. Then she's seen personally filing charges against suspected justices accused of economic sabotage. Yet another day she's proudly standing in Malacanang, the presidential palace, surrounded by suspected drug dealers and petty criminals, who were hauled to the seat of power to be humiliated in front of a disgusted public.

To say that Arroyo is conducting a high-profile campaign against lawlessness would be an understatement. And in a country where criminals seem to act with impunity and often literally get away with murder, it's no question that the public welcomes any effort to bring back some semblance of peace and order back to society.

But is Arroyo's hands-on drive against criminality genuine? Or is it just another public-relations stunt designed to shore up her continually weakening base of support?

Clearly not everybody agrees with how Arroyo is going about chasing criminals. Her most controversial tactic has been the almost daily parading of suspects before the media and claiming before the world that this is proof she's getting tough on crime. Arroyo says that humiliating criminals is a strong deterrent to crime. More sober voices say it is downright unethical, even illegal.

Amnesty International has been one of the loudest opponents of Arroyo's tactics. It decried having suspects "paraded in front of media as criminals before they have been tried in court". Put in more colloquial terms, the Philippines is a country where the president wields an inordinate amount of power. Part of this is cultural, as everyone wants to please the top boss, to curry favor. Who can go against the wishes of the president? By humiliating suspects, she is almost definitely convicting them by publicity. Once you've appeared before the president, it's no secret that you have to be found guilty. Otherwise the president will look extremely bad. And nobody who values his job wants to make the president look bad.

Then again, Arroyo has been doing a fairly good job of doing that herself. In one recent instance the government uncovered a US$4 million tax-diversion scam involving a key officer of a large government bank. Of course as soon as the crime was bared, Arroyo rushed to the headquarters of the NBI to announce the crime to the press and to present and humiliate the suspects.

But in the rush to look like a super crimebuster, Arroyo, with the cameras rolling, mistakenly fingered the wrong person. A bank employee standing behind her, the president boasted, was one of the prime suspects who would soon be serving a long jail sentence. The only problem being was that this woman was not a suspect but the actual whistleblower who had worked with the government investigators to uncover the diversion scam. Still, when this major faux pas was bared the next day in the press, Arroyo and her NBI chief refused to apologize. They even went so far as to say that the lady would actually be included in the charge sheet anyway.

On several occasions she has presented suspects in robbery and drug cases right inside the presidential palace. Even some of her own supporters have scored Arroyo for degrading the seat of power by bringing even common criminals to the hallowed halls of the president of the republic. She has been reminded too that these people are suspects who are supposedly innocent until proven guilty.

But still Arroyo has persisted in her supposed hands-on campaign. As the days since her state of the nation address have gone by, however, her true intentions clearly belie her statements. On another occasion, the police busted a crystal methamphetamine syndicate outside of Metro Manila. After the raid, the police took the men in to custody and took the confiscated drugs to their headquarters. But then Arroyo got wind of the bust. She immediately had the police take the suspects and all the drugs back to the scene of the crime in the province, which was perhaps two hours outside of Manila. She hopped on a helicopter and flew to the scene. Naturally wherever the president goes, the press follows. And sure enough the next day the papers were filled with pictures of Arroyo literally at the scene of the crime supposedly only minutes after the bust was made.

Several days later she presided over the presentation of a gang of robbers who were said to have been caught by her elite presidential anti-crime force. The gang had been hitting fancy restaurants in the San Juan area of Manila, first posing as customers then staging daring holdups. It did not matter that this same criminal gang had already been busted several days before by the San Juan cops. The suspects were hauled out of their prison cells and made to wear T-shirts with the acronym of the elite force emblazoned on the front accompanied by the word "Detainee". They were then presented before the president, who credited her men for doing the job.

And she hasn't stopped with ordinary hoodlums. Recently she personally filed charges against two judges for the crime of issuing temporary restraining orders that stopped the bureau of customs from seizing cargo ships supposedly containing smuggled rice. Since the ships were allowed to sail away with the rice still on board, Arroyo claimed that this was proof that the judges were corrupt.

Besides the glaring anomalies that a campaign of humiliation highlights, perhaps even more problematic is the president's claim that nobody in her new war on crime will be untouchable. Anyone who knows how the Philippines operates knows that this is simply not true.

Arroyo has made a big fuss about crushing the illegal numbers game jueteng, which is played by tens of thousands of people daily throughout the country. It was the supposed kickbacks from this game that got her predecessor Joseph Estrada into hot water and caused the downfall of his administration. The massive daily take from the game is said to buy protection and fund political campaigns of politicians.

But the numbers game continues to flourish, with bet collectors casually walking around provincial neighborhoods taking wagers for the three-times-a-day draw. Several weeks back Arroyo supposedly fired seven top police officials for not doing enough to eradicate jueteng. After they were relieved of their positions, however, they weren't even prosecuted. Instead they were "reassigned" to other jobs.

Even more unusual is the fact that the government's key witness against Estrada in his ongoing trial for plunder was himself an admitted jueteng lord in his home province up north, where he was a powerful governor. In the Arroyo administration he is a hero who is regularly welcomed at the palace and showered with praise. In the current trial against Estrada, the former governor has also repeatedly told of another jueteng boss from Arroyo's home province and yet Malacanang insists he is a legitimate businessman.

Perhaps, though, all this should come as no surprise. After all, one only has to look at the dubious way in which Arroyo ascended to power back in January 2001. Did the head of the armed forces of the Philippines follow the constitution when he withdrew his support for the duly elected leader of the nation? Did the chief justice of the Supreme Court follow the letter of the law by swearing in Arroyo to a position that wasn't even vacant? How can a president conduct a sincere and true drive versus rampant crime when she owes her position to people who twisted the law to serve their own ends?

Certainly it's difficult to blame the hard-working businessman for wondering whether Arroyo's stepped-up drive versus crime is really more hype than it is bite.

Ted Lerner is the author of the book Hey, Joe - A Slice of the City, an American in Manila. He can be reached via e-mail at tedlheyjoe@yahoo.com

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