MANILA - Some two years after Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power in 2001
on the back of massive people's power protests,
which eventuated in the ouster of then-president
Joseph Estrada, the accidental premier vowed in a
concession to the opposition not to run for
another term at the next democratic polls.
However, after a personal meeting with the
pope, Arroyo later hinted that divine intervention
spurred her change of political heart and decision
to run in the 2004 elections, which she won
narrowly and amid still nagging and unresolved
charges of vote-rigging and electoral fraud.
Now a new round of people's power rallies,
most recently led by a number of Catholic priests
and nuns, have called on her to
resign
over a
series of corruption scandals that have undermined
her administration's public image and some say
political legitimacy. So far Arroyo has stood her
ground, believing that time and God are still on
her government's side. "I pray that the Lord
enlighten them," said Arroyo, referring to those
trying to drive her from power.
An
estimated 75,000 banner-waving, anti-Arroyo
protesters took to the streets of Manila's
financial district on Friday, prompting many
businesses and banks to close shop early.
Protesters were buoyed by the participation of
former presidents Corazon Aquino and Joseph
Estrada, who symbolically lent their voices to the
calls for Arroyo's resignation. Aquino had earlier
in the week referred to Arroyo's political
troubles as a "moral crisis".
Demonstration organizers indicated over
the weekend that they will continue their rallies
until the president agrees to step down. They have
mobilized their numbers largely around the latest
major scandal to rock Arroyo's government, a
botched US$329 million broadband Internet
infrastructure deal which is currently under
investigation in a Senate inquiry.
Arroyo's husband and a former election
chief who allegedly had a hand in rigging the 2004
polls in Arroyo's favor, both stand accused of
accepting bribes and kickbacks in the deal with
China's ZTE Corporation. A witness in the inquiry,
Dante Madriaga, last week accused an Arroyo-linked
"gang of four" of receiving $41 million in advance
commissions, $30 million of which he claimed were
used to fund administration-linked candidates in
the May 2007 congressional elections.
Arroyo herself revealed in a recent radio
interview last week that she was aware of
irregularities in the deal, but at the time felt
it too late to cancel the contract which she
eventually traveled to China to sign personally.
She has since scotched the contract and both
Arroyo's husband and the former election official
have denied any wrongdoing in association with the
deal. The government meanwhile has said there is
no evidence to substantiate the corruption
allegations.
"All Philippine governments
are corrupt, but this one makes [former dictator
Ferdinand] Marcos' plunder look conservative,"
said one of the street protesters from the
student-run Youth Act Now' group. "Arroyo's time
to go has come."
The art of
patronage Such criticism is nothing
new to the embattled president. Her government has
since 2001 survived three impeachment motions and
three military insurrections - not to mention
years of strident media criticism. Despite the
mounting popular pressure, more sober voices in
Manila believe that even with the latest people's
power movement, Arroyo will most likely see out
her six-year term which runs through 2010.
While fumbling the management of scandals,
Arroyo has ingeniously played old-fashioned
patronage politics to her advantage. The Lower
House of congress is now staunchly loyal to the
premier - undermining the ability of the
opposition-led Senate to launch fresh impeachment
proceedings.
As such, there have been no
complaints from the Lower House about her
controversial Executive Order 464, which bars
officials from attending legislative hearings
unless allowed by the president and if upheld
could scupper the Senate's current investigations
into the ZTE scandal.
More locally, her
administration recently disbursed hundreds of
billions worth of pesos to the provinces for
so-called development purposes, though according
to government critics the funds were flushed in a
manner which gave influential local politicians
huge discretionary powers over how the money was
spent.
In Manila, she has doled out
heavily for "priority" public works projects, many
of which are adorned with banners bearing her
image. Jose Pavia, a long-time journalist attached
to the Philippine Press Institute, notes that
Arroyo's splurging on public works is similar to
the "picks-and-shovels" strategy deployed by her
presidential father - Diosdado Macapagal - to win
over grassroots urban support.
She has
also effectively used patronage to split the
influential Catholic clergy, which was
instrumental in the downfall of Marcos. The
Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines -
to which her government hands a heavenly share of
the revenues generated from state-run lotteries -
announced just before Friday's mass rally that it
would not endorse calls for Arroyo's resignation.
The day before the rally, television news stations
ran clips of a group of priests from Arroyo's home
province circled around the embattled premier
saying what were referred to as "special prayers"
for her.
Just as crucially, Arroyo has
kept both the military's leadership and the local
business community onside. In their own distinct
ways, both have recently expressed strong support
for the embattled premier. The military said in
the run-up to Friday's rally it would uphold the
constitution and had manned tanks at the ready to
guard against any violence. A senior-ranking
officer, echoing the government's line, told
reporters that the protesters in Manila were not
necessarily representative of the country's 90
million people.
Business
friendly The Philippine Chamber of
Commerce and Industry has so far called vaguely
for "truth and accountability". Yet investors
seemingly defied the protests, which were held in
the capital's main Makati financial district, by
running up share prices during Friday's trading.
The broad all share index was up 17 points, with
advances leading declines by a ratio of 2:1.
Meanwhile earlier in the week, the peso hit an
eight-year high against the US greenback. (The
broad index fell 1.3% during Monday trading, due
to investor fears over a weakening US economy,
according to news reports.)
Arroyo's
constant calls to put the economy above politics
have resonated well in the business community - as
have her adept fiscal management and pro-market
reforms. Philippine gross domestic product (GDP)
was up a surprising 7.3% last year, marking the
country's best GDP growth performance in nearly 31
years. Standard Chartered recently characterized
the Philippines as "one of the best positioned"
economies in Asia to withstand the effects of a
US-led global slowdown and is expected to grow
between 5% and 6% this year. The UK-based bank
also said the country's fiscal finances are at
their best in over a decade.
That's not to
say top executives haven't in the wake of the
scandals had second thoughts about Arroyo, who is
a US-trained economist. A group of senior business
leaders recently reportedly consulted with Vice
President Noli de Castro to gauge his willingness
and readiness to assume the reins of power if
Arroyo resigned or were forced from power.
According to the same sources, de Castro
said he was not yet ready and so the business
community has shored up its support for the
embattled Arroyo over the prospect of another
destabilizing extra-legal transition in government
or the elevation of a less business-friendly
replacement. De Castro has since said publicly
that he is "prepared" but not "preparing" to take
power.
There is widespread agreement among
Manila's chattering classes - shared notably by
Arroyo's supporters - that another people's
power-led political transition would further
undermine the country's already battered and
bruised democratic credentials and potentially
sour foreign investor sentiment in the economy and
the government's ability to uphold the rule of law
and contractual obligations.
Lawyers and
judges in Manila point to a widespread culture of
impunity, which they argue with the upshot in
extrajudicial killings and lack of accountability
for official corruption and abuse of power, have
strongly intensified during Arroyo's nearly
seven-year-old administration.
The Supreme
Court recently swung back by overruling the
constitutionality of a previous government ban on
broadcasting the contents of the wire-tapped
conversation between Arroyo and an election
official which appears to reveal the two fixing
vote counts in certain constituencies during the
2004 election.
At the same time, Arroyo
has also stacked several courts with known
loyalist judges; one political analyst notes that
if Arroyo sees through her term she will most
likely have had a hand in the appointment of all
nine Supreme Court judges. To be sure, it's still
possible that the ZTE scandal eventually brings
down Arroyo's government - but because of her
adept play at divide-and-rule patronage politics,
her downfall will likely need to come through the
courts rather than the streets.
The
current incarnation of people's power protests in
the Philippines is more a reflection of the
opposition's desperation than strength, and
underlines the enduring lack of checks and
balances on the government's executive branch.
One former newspaper editor and press
freedom activist says he is now resigned to Arroyo
staying power, but hopes there is a "final
reckoning" after she leaves office as
constitutionally required in 2010. With the
political, business and religious forces now lined
up behind Arroyo's administration, that is likely
all that he and Arroyo's other opponents can pray
for.
Shawn W Crispin
is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He
may be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.
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