|
|
|
|
Arroyo hanged by
history
By Leslie Davis
MANILA - As she roams the regal splendor
of Malacanang Palace, Philippine President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo has plenty to occupy her mind.
She is distrusted by large sections of the adult
populace, having been accused and then practically
admitting that she cheated to win in last year's
presidential election. Large protests are mounting
in the streets, and she has been abandoned by
nearly her entire cabinet, as well as an exalted
former president and various allies in parliament
and civil society. Yet this diminutive leader is
clearly consumed with ways and means to cling
tenaciously to the seat of power she so very much
covets.
But frantically finding ways to
plug the holes in her sinking ship is surely not
the only thing occupying Arroyo's time. As with
leaders the world over, there is a legacy to think
about. And undoubtedly this must pain Arroyo as
much, if not more, than the large brick-bats she
has had to endure recently. For not only do
surveys reveal that she is the most distrusted
leader in Philippine history, she may very well go
down as leaving as shameful a legacy to democracy
in the Philippines as dictator Ferdinand Marcos,
who was ousted in a people-power revolution in
1986.
As rumors swirl through the sultry
and polluted Manila air of possible resignation,
with a revolutionary council, a military junta or
some other kind of beast emerging from the mess,
one must ask how it is that the Philippines came
to this precarious point. Is it simply a matter of
inherently unwieldy politics, of a system that
encourages corruption? Or does it simply have to
do with Arroyo herself?
"Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo has set back the political growth
of our country by at least 20 years as a result of
her single-minded pursuit of personal power,"
wrote columnist Randy David. "She has re-injected
into our nation's governance a mode of rule that
perniciously privatizes state power. Like a small
town politico who has mastered the rhythms of the
patron-client system, she has bought the personal
loyalty of law-enforcers, the acquiescence of
legislators, the allegiance of justices, and the
silence of civil society. She has used government
resources to wage an expensive electoral campaign
like no other president has since Marcos."
David, however, would go on to write that
Arroyo herself is a product of a system which
encourages this kind of behavior. Undoubtedly
there is more than a small amount of truth in this
statement. The sad part for the Philippines,
though, is that it didn't have to be this way.
Despite shortcomings in the system and
Philippine society as a whole, Arroyo could have
very easily been elected honestly and ruled
strongly. She has pedigree - her father was
president in the early 1960s - and she has
intelligence - she holds a doctorate in economics
from Georgetown University. The presidency and a
solid legacy were almost hers by birthright. But
fate, and a case of naked ambition for power by
her and her allies in the elite, the Catholic
Church, the military and big business, had other
ideas.
Roots of the trouble
To
try and decipher where the troubles of Arroyo
began, one must look to the "ground zero" of
current Philippine politics, January 2001, when
she was catapulted into power under extremely
controversial circumstances. At the time, Arroyo
was vice president to Joseph Estrada, a favorite
of the poor masses who, in 1998, had won the
largest mandate in Philippine electoral history.
With his habits of purposely mangling the English
language, and his admitted philandering, drinking
and gambling, Estrada was particularly loathed by
the Catholic Church, the powerful oligarchy and
the business community, all of which felt that he
was an embarrassment to the country.
Estrada was subsequently impeached on
charges that he had profited handsomely from an
illegal numbers game called jueteng and
that he had siphoned off tobacco excise tax money.
Estrada held a slim majority in the senate and it
was believed that it would be difficult to get
enough senators to vote him guilty.
But
then came something called "the second envelope",
which prosecutors claimed contained explosive new
evidence sealed inside. Never mind that the
evidence was not part of the original charge sheet
and was therefore by law inadmissible. The
prosecutors said the evidence was explosive and
that the envelope should be opened for the entire
nation to see. The senators took a vote. The
result favored Estrada, and the envelope remained
unopened.
The result outraged the
opponents of Estrada. Then the prosecutors did
something that changed Philippine history. They
walked out of the trial in protest and disgust,
claiming that it was obvious there was no way to
have a fair trial as Estrada's allies had the deck
stacked.
Thus began street protests in
which several hundred-thousand anti-Estrada people
gathered on E Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA), the
scene of the mass protests that drove Marcos from
power in 1986. The protestors came mostly from the
elite, middle class and the left. Then came the
straw the broke the camel's back; the military
hierarchy withdrew its support of Estrada.
Enter the chief justice of the Supreme
Court, Hilario Davide. He was the presiding judge
at the impeachment trial. If he had followed the
constitution and the law, he would have ordered
the prosecutors to come back and finish the trial
of Estrada, or else face arrest for contempt. That
was the legal and right thing to do. But instead
the chief justice went ahead and declared the
presidency vacant, when in fact Estrada had not
resigned. He then went to the gathered throng at
EDSA and swore in Arroyo as president.
At
this point Arroyo could have declared that she was
simply an acting president, until Estrada decided
to come back. But instead she and her allies set
about legitimizing what was clearly an illegal
rise to power. When Estrada filed a case in the
Supreme Court a month later contesting Arroyo's
legitimacy, claiming she could not have been sworn
in as he had never resigned, the Supreme Court
ruled that he had indeed "constructively
resigned". Their evidence was not a resignation
letter from Estrada, which didn't exist, but a
diary of the goings-on in the palace during
Estrada's last days, written by Estrada's chief of
staff and printed in a local newspaper.
In
essence, what the Supreme Court did with that
decision was to legitimize a coup, an illegal
power-grab. Thus it was clear from the beginning
of her term that Arroyo would prove to be a
divisive leader. Everything she did from that
point on could be easily questioned and criticized
by her opponents. More importantly, perhaps, to
cover up for the original misdeed of being sworn
in when there was no vacancy in the presidency,
she was forced to prostitute nearly all aspects of
Philippine public life, including the police, the
military the judiciary and the elections
commission. And those in power along with her had
to fall in line.
This is all patently
clear now, with the surfacing of a tape revealing
Arroyo allegedly speaking with an election
commissioner during vote counting and arranging to
rig a a million-vote victory in last year's
presidential elections. Arroyo believed a real
electoral victory in 2004 would finally give her
the peace and true legitimacy that she so
zealously desired. At the time, the election
seemed riddled with cheating and the blatant use
of government money by Arroyo to secure victory.
The opposition raised a storm of protest. But when
congress tallied the votes, her compliant majority
nixed any opportunity to look further into alleged
anomalies and declared Arroyo victorious over
actor Fernando Poe Jr by a margin of, yes, just
over a million votes.
In 2001, the
Philippines could have strengthened its democracy
and constitution if the elite - which included two
former presidents, business, the Catholic bishops,
civil society forces, then opposition politicians
and the military commanders, took the
constitutional route and let the impeachment
process play out its natural course, no matter the
outcome. Even if Estrada had been allowed to
finish his term, people would more than likely
have been so fed up with his style of leadership
that Arroyo would have been swept into power
legitimately, and with a bigger mandate than
Estrada.
Indeed, it's all about
legitimacy. Nobody, especially the desperately
needed foreign investors, is under any illusions
that the Philippines is a perfect place. But this
archipelago is teeming with natural resources, a
large, young and fairly well-educated
English-speaking population and terrific weather
year-round. Foreign investors are clamoring to
invest in the Philippines. If only there was
consistency in policy and stability in government.
The minority elite in the Philippines, who
control a vast majority of the country's wealth,
have always been highly concerned with what the
outside world thinks of the country. They hated
Estrada because they complained he made the
Philippines the laughing stock of the world. But
the reality is that the rest of the world had too
many of their own problems to really care. If
anything, what the rest of the world, and
especially foreign investors, care about is
stability, proper transfer of power, and some kind
of overt indication that there is consistency in
policy and in the machinations of government.
What is happening to Arroyo is nothing
more than a simple case of the chickens coming
home to roost. Who will believe her when she says
her critics must follow the constitution, when she
herself skirted the nation's charter to gain power
the first, and now the second, time? She and her
allies say that the Philippines can't handle
another people-power uprising, when she herself
profited because of people power. Now, under
intense pressure to resign, she says the rule of
the mob will not and cannot prevail. But she
herself is a product of the very thing she
decries.
The problem with Arroyo and the
few backers she has left is that they have lost
all credibility. It was over as soon as it began.
No matter what happens in the coming weeks,
democracy in the Philippines has clearly been
dealt a mortal blow.
(Copyright 2005 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
