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'Cheater' Arroyo faces
people's wrath
By Johanna Son
MANILA - When rumors of a coup and a
popular revolt rise in the Philippines, protest
rallies begin, the currency stumbles and the
distribution of political jokes through mobile
phones reaches a peak, it can only mean one thing:
a political crisis is brewing.
That
situation escalated on Monday when President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo admitted she had phoned an
election official during the May 2004 poll to
discuss her share of the vote. After making the
announcement, Arroyo apologized to the nation,
describing her action as a "lapse of judgement",
but denied she had been trying to influence the
outcome of the election and said she would not
quit, despite growing pressure for her to step
down.
The evidence of so-called wrongdoing
lies in tapes of wiretapped conversations between
Arroyo and a member of the Commission on Elections
during the counting of votes after the 2004
presidential poll. In these tapes, which Arroyo's
camp says have been tampered with by groups
seeking to destabilize the government, a voice
that sounds like the president's asks elections
commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about the
progress of vote-counting in some parts of the
country.
The commissioner, supposed to be
an independent official, replies with references
to adjusting upward the number of votes for Arroyo
and says he would "take care" of vote results. At
one point, the voice that sounds like Arroyo's
asks for reassurances of still "winning by one
million votes".
In Monday's televised
address, the president did not directly refer to
the tape recording, which was released to the
media three weeks ago. But she did say she had
spoken to an election commissioner.
A
crisis in the making
The indications of a
crisis have been apparent for more than a month,
putting politics into overdrive in this Southeast
Asian country of 80 million people known for its
free-wheeling, noisy brand of democracy.
It also highlights, once again, questions
about where the Philippines' democratic
institutions stand, nearly 20 years after the 1986
"People Power" revolt that ended the dictatorship
of Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy to the
country.
Talk of calling for a third
popular revolt - the second one in 2001 booted out
former president Joseph Estrada - is fueling
worries that Filipinos are adopting a bad habit of
kicking out their leaders and using what some call
"mob rule", instead of constitutional means, to
bring about political change.
"Gloria
running out of time", was splashed across a Manila
tabloid and "Oust Gloria!" placards were carried
by protesters who marched toward the presidential
palace over the weekend asking Arroyo to step
down.
In late May, Arroyo's husband,
brother-in-law and son, an elected member of the
House of Representatives, were accused of
receiving funds from illegal gambling and are now
the subject of a Senate inquiry. Then in early
June Arroyo was accused of having cheated in last
year's elections.
News reports said more
than 5,000 people - still a far cry from the
hundreds of thousands to millions who took part in
the 1986 and 2001 protests that unseated two
Philippine presidents - took part in rallies.
The president had earlier chosen not to
address the issue of the tapes, saying that both
the official and unofficial counts in the 2004
election, where foreign observers were present,
proclaimed her the duly elected winner. "They want
to entrap me, but I will not surrender to the
destabilizers," she said on June 17.
Yet
pressure continued to mount for her to speak,
"before it is too late". "Her not speaking on the
matter is affecting her credibility," said Senator
Roilo Golez.
As speculation continued,
Sixto Macasaet of the Caucus of Development NGOs,
one of the biggest supporters of the 2001 protests
that led to Estrada's ouster and the assumption of
power by Arroyo, then the vice president, said,
"As former supporters, we hope it's not true, but
if she's the one on tape, painful as it is to us,
she has to accept that she has to step down."
Tape scandal takes over
The
Philippine peso fell to nearly 55 pesos to the
dollar last week, the lowest in months. Positive
news, like that of 5% growth in gross domestic
product (GDP) in the first quarter, was
overshadowed by the tape scandal. Since the
accusation broke, it has dominated talk shows,
radio commentaries and online weblogs, and the
tapes can be downloaded from the Internet.
Apart from calling for a third revolt,
some politicians have urged the creation of
independent commissions and others are now calling
for impeachment proceedings.
But while
these calls create a lot of noise, they may not
necessarily lead to political action. Analysts
doubt the opposition has the strength to impeach
Arroyo or the popular support needed to stir up
the kind of protests that forced Estrada from the
presidency.
"Tell me, which politician
hasn't cheated?" argued Cathy Martelino, an
employee of a publishing agency. A women, Celeste,
who works in the Makati financial district asked,
"Are we really shocked by this, or just shocked
that cheaters can get caught?"
For all the
column inches, radio hours and coffee-shop talk
devoted to the tapes, Filipinos do not appear -
not yet at least - inspired enough to take to the
streets again. "People power fatigue", some call
it.
"There is a calibrated and methodical
plot, whose authors have not yet been identified,
to overthrow the government. This plot apparently
seeks to press for a change of government through
extra-constitutional and extra-legal modes," wrote
political commentator Amando Doronila in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer.
But "the people
are not in the mood to be used as cannon fodder on
behalf of the disgruntled hotheads and rabble
rousers," he added.
While the truth must
be established, Doronila said allegations should
be processed through constitutional means, such as
impeachment. "Any other mode destroys the
constitutional system and invites a regime of
lawlessness, leading to anarchy."
One
politician has even suggested that Arroyo need
only apologize, because there is no real credible
alternative to her as president, and Filipinos
might in fact forgive her. Her decision to admit a
lapse in judgment but deny wrongdoing may even
help ease the pressure on her presidency.
Professor Felipe Miranda of the University
of the Philippines said the situation - including
the use of humor and sarcasm through mobile-phone
jokes, as in the weeks before the 2001 revolt -
shows that "right now, we have to see what the
threshold of the society is" on the tape issue.
"People also learn from the past, after
giving previous leaders the benefit of the doubt,
but as time passes, this becomes shorter," Miranda
said on television.
For now, Filipinos
continue to use creative protests, downloading and
passing on ring-tones for mobile phones featuring
a voice that sounds like Arroyo's saying, "Hello,
Garci? Garci? [Garcillano's nickname]. I'll win by
a million votes?"
Beyond the truth of the
tapes, of whether or not the president cheated,
and what means should be used to get to the truth
of the allegations, Filipinos should be worrying
about other questions.
An elections
commissioner occupies a constitutionally mandated
office and is supposed to be impartial - and not,
as the voice that appears to be Garcillano's
talking to the president, refer to "our side" in
an election. The fact that the president indeed
called the commissioner puts into question an
agency vital to the integrity of a democratic
electoral process - and the selection of the
country's leader.
A former elections
commissioner, Christian Monsod, recalled that
ex-president Corazon Aquino never called him and
that Estrada telephoned only in 1992, to ask about
election procedures. "But to ask about status,
about [margins] of votes, I don't think that is a
question that should be asked by any candidate -
particularly by a president - of an [election]
commissioner she appointed."
(Inter Press
Service) |
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