MANILA - The Philippines is marking the
20th anniversary of its finest political hour with
a demonstration that its democracy remains
brittle, its political institutions on the point
of collapse, its economy as corrupt as ever and
its leaders embroiled in endless rounds of
infighting.
On Friday, as
already-splintered veterans of the so-called
People Power revolt prepared to mark the occasion
when masses of
people and military rebels
peacefully forced then-president Ferdinand Marcos
to flee the country on February 25, 1986,
embattled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
declared a formal state of emergency - a chilling
echo of the language and tactics employed by
Marcos when he instituted martial law in 1972.
Arroyo claims to have uncovered a plot
hatched by a collage of the political opposition,
rebel communists and "military adventurists" to
topple her government. Her emergency decree comes
fast on the heels of reports about troop movements
and suspicious activities of at least one army
general linked to previous military attempts to
overthrow the government.
The left and the
right, Arroyo said, "are now in a tactical
alliance and engaged in a concerted and systematic
conspiracy, over a broad front, to bring down the
duly constituted government". She also said, "The
claims of these elements have been recklessly
magnified by certain segments of the national
media."
The declaration gives her
government broad discretionary powers, including
provisions that allow authorities to arrest
without warrants, seize public utilities and, if
deemed necessary, to shore up national security
and censor the media. Arroyo has not yet spelled
out her plans to enforce her already shaky grip on
political power, but the decree sends a worrying
signal for the future of Philippine democracy.
The state of emergency led to the arrest
of one general linked to previous coup attempts, a
few other arrests and a ban on protests and
ceremonies timed to the People's Power
anniversary. But when Corazon Aquino, the woman
who succeeded Marcos, led a peaceful march through
the heart of the business district, authorities
backed down after a brief standoff with riot
police and allowed several thousand protesters to
continue.
Aquino is the closest thing the
Philippines has to a moral leader, largely
considered above partisan politics, and anger over
Arroyo's move during a virtual national holiday
celebrating democracy may open the door to a
broader movement against her government. "I am not
an icon of democracy," Aquino said in Tagalog to
cheering supporters. "You are all, collectively,
the icon of democracy."
Aquino, who also
supported the ouster of Arroyo's predecessor in
2001, then said in English: "Mrs President, I ask
you to make the supreme sacrifice of resigning."
The crowd roared back: "Gloria resign!"
As
important in some ways as Aquino were others in
the crowd - she was joined by some of the
country's leading businessmen, whose support for
Arroyo has been steadily eroding. "The state of
emergency weakens her," said Jess Estanislao, a
well-known banker and former finance secretary, as
he marched with Aquino. "This is the beginning of
the end for Arroyo."
That may be wishful
thinking, but Arroyo, who was installed in office
in 2001 on the wave of another popular revolt
against then-president Joseph Estrada's
government, has been unsteady for much of the past
year. The controversy surrounding her
administration came to a head last year when she
was secretly taped discussing the 2004
presidential-election vote count with an election
official on the telephone. The tapes were made
public under mysterious circumstances, and her
political opponents have been trying to force her
resignation ever since.
The latest turn of
the political screw is further evidence that the
once-high hopes for better governance and more
democracy engendered by the first People's Power
revolt in 1986, a peaceful four-day uprising that
inspired similar actions worldwide, have now come
almost completely undone. In the intervening
years, in many ways, things have gone from bad to
worse.
Following Marcos, Aquino's
administration was beset by numerous coup attempts
by a politically active and restive military.
Traditional elites, some of whom had run afoul of
Marcos, returned with a vengeance to resume
positions of privilege and patronage. Back-door
deal-making was the order of the day, despite
Aquino's morally upright reputation.
Marcos died in exile, but none of his
cronies, the same men who helped him
systematically loot the country, were successfully
prosecuted. The group Transparency International
says the official thievery under Marcos made his
regime the second most corrupt of the 20th century
- outdone only by Indonesia's deposed Suharto.
Marcos' notoriously flamboyant and wealthy
widow, Imelda, has never been convicted of any
crime, despite facing hundreds of court cases. She
remains a fixture on the social scene, as
bejeweled and lacquered as ever, and her children
are gearing up for political careers.
After a period of relative political calm
and notable economic progress under Fidel Ramos'
six-year term in the 1990s, political turmoil
returned soon after former actor Estrada was
elected president on a populist ticket. Corruption
allegations hounded his government and fueled the
"People's Power 2" rallies that eventually
overthrew his administration - even though he was
democratically elected and is still popular with
the majority of poor Filipinos.
The result
of what is now more than two decades of
instability that began under Marcos and continued
through coup attempts and the two popular revolts,
the last something approaching mob rule, has been
anemic economic growth, entrenched poverty,
soaring birth rates and a political system captive
to shifting loyalties and endless intrigues.
The Philippines' economy is kept afloat
largely on remittances from overseas workers with
mainly menial jobs in more-developed economies.
Those inflows amounted to a record US$10.35
billion last year, equivalent to a quarter of the
country's exports, or about 12% of gross domestic
product.
The current state of affairs
raises questions among the political elite about
the future viability of liberal democracy in the
Philippines. "What is clear to me after 20 years
is that democracy is not a prescription for
economic progress. Not the way we practice it,"
said Teodoro Locsin Jr, one of Aquino's closest
advisers and now a nominally pro-government
congressman.
Indeed, so fractured is the
political environment that none of the leaders of
the first People's Power movement will appear
together publicly to commemorate the events.
Aquino, for one, is planning to attend a mass and
a rally on Saturday at the shrine to "Our Lady of
EDSA", a massive statue of the Virgin Mary erected
near Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) in
Manila, the place where nuns knelt in prayer in
1986 before the armored vehicles of Marcos' army
to stop potential violence.
For his part,
Ramos plans to preside at a flag-raising ceremony
at another monument. Juan Ponce Enrile, who was
linked to a series of coup attempts against
Aquino, is boycotting the whole thing.
Even before her state-of-emergency
announcement, Arroyo, the daughter of a former
president and herself an anti-Marcos activist, was
avoiding public commemorations of the event.
The depth of the infighting runs deep.
Ramos, 77, who likes to view himself as a Filipino
version of Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kwan
Yew, has repeatedly demanded that Arroyo step down
by next year and has called for a radical new
constitution that would change the Philippines
from a presidential to a parliamentary political
system. "It is the only solution to our
instability," he said in an interview.
Is
Ramos involved in current plots? He won't say. "We
are trying to keep everyone in the same ship,"
Ramos joked over drinks in his office after a long
meeting with some of Arroyo's known enemies. "But
not necessarily with the same skipper.
"Arroyo," he said, "is small-minded and
self-centered." Her government, he believes, is
corrupt and has lost its legitimacy. Noting the
self-imposed exile of her husband, Mike Arroyo,
after he was accused of involvement in a
nationwide gambling syndicate, Ramos said, "The
First Gentleman is the source of a lot of graft
and corruption."
Politicians in the
Philippines routinely rip into one another, so
perhaps Ramos' comments should be taken with a
pinch of salt. But the current political
environment is as fractured as it has been in
years. Whereas the struggle against Marcos had a
palpable story line of good versus evil, the
current free-for-all appears venal on all sides.
Ever since Marcos fell, the Philippines has been
exhausted by conspiracies, half-baked economic
policies and endless political intrigue. Not to
mention widespread disappointment.
What
did Ramos expect when the revolt he began in 1986
succeeded? "Upwards, upwards, upwards," he said.
Twenty years later? "We are sinking," he said.
A Lin Neumann is a veteran
Philippines correspondent who witnessed the
movement that led to the overthrow of Ferdinand
Marcos.
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