Asia Times: A question of fair play


	May 4, 2001	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

HEY JOE
A question of fair play
By Ted Lerner

MANILA - I know the Filipino poor. Unlike most educated and elite Filipinos, who only know the poor from those driving their fancy cars or mopping their Italian tiled floors, I have visited the poor's squalid neighborhoods, hung out in their ramshackle homes, partaken of their food, drunk beer and rum with them in their canteens, befriended them and traveled with them in the jeepneys and motorized tricycles that ferry the common man and woman from here to there.

The poor in the Philippines are mostly a simple and friendly lot and don't seem to ask or demand too much. One thing that the masses of Filipino poor do demand, and will get worked up over if they don't get it, however, is fair play. And fair play is exactly what they don't see when they look at President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The poor Filipinos' concept of fair play is why they continue to support their hero, ousted leader Joseph Estrada. Fair play is why hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, poured out onto the streets of Manila to protest his arrest on corruption charges. Fair play is why, even though their unplanned uprising this past week has been effectively suppressed for now, the situation is far from resolved in the Philippines.

Don't be misled by the images of rioting kids plastered on the televisions and newspapers around the world. That crowd of 20,000 pro-Estrada supporters who marched to the presidential palace was not fully representative of the millions of mostly peaceful demonstrators who turned out in support of Estrada and had the middle and elite classes scared out of their wits.

In reality, it was routine police action, a crowd dispersal. But Mrs Arroyo took the opportunity of a few lawless elements to crack down. She claimed she thwarted a coup attempt, then declared a state of rebellion which allowed warrantless arrests, sent out arrest orders for 11 supposed coup plotters, including several senators and would-be senators running on the opposition ticket in the May 14 elections, and warned them not to try again.

In a country that loves drama, the good guys had been proclaimed the winners. The pro-Estrada people were labeled thugs and filthy, unruly drug addicts, whose actions were supported and paid for by men and women with immoral and evil intentions out to subvert democracy and the rule of law. That she immediately received support from her patron, the Archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin and the Catholic church, the business sectors, media and, naturally, the United States Embassy, obviously has boosted her confidence. For the moment, Mrs Arroyo has claimed the upper hand and put her opponents on the defensive.

But the Filipinos' concept of fair play will more than likely come back to haunt her. Contrary to what the opponents of Estrada have always said, the continuing support for him is not simply a cult of personality. His supporters have a legitimate complaint. The depth of the feelings of the millions of poor who voted for him and who feel that they've been cheated out of their leader cannot be easily dismissed. From the time he took office - even before, actually - he was vilified by the business elite, the media and the Catholic Church. More importantly, while it is true Estrada was linked to one scandal after the next, to this day he has never been given a chance to respond to any of the charges hurled at him.

In his impeachment trial which began last December, the prosecution spent two months piling on heaps of accusations, telling the world that the duly elected president of the Philippines was a thief, that he was running a criminal syndicate out of Malacanang Palace.

Then the prosecution introduced a sealed envelope containing, they said, evidence that would further link Estrada to illegal bank accounts. That the envelope was not even part of the original evidence and by any standard legal basis could not be introduced as evidence, didn't seem to matter to Estrada's opponents. When 11 senators out of 21 voted not to allow the opening of the envelope, the prosecutors abruptly walked out and quit the trial.

In terms of how an ordinary Filipino - the kind who make up Estrada's legions of supporters - would look at the world, that kind of behavior is just too much to take. Walking away after publicly piling on terrible accusations for two months is not fair play, it's disrespectful, a slap in the face and public humiliation of the highest order. In the Filipino character, you do not confront and embarrass someone in that public a manner. They may not respond back right away, but they never forget. Last week's uprising was proof of that.

The next reason Estrada's supporters have cried foul is the way he was then unceremoniously run out of office. Since the prosecution walked out, legally the trial was over and Estrada should have been off the hook since there is no other legal way to oust a duly elected president. When the military withdrew its support for Estrada during the subsequent street demonstrations, they clearly subverted the constitution with their highly illegal act. That vice president Arroyo was sworn in as president even though Estrada had never officially resigned was also a highly questionable move legally.

Of course, the Philippine Supreme court subsequently twice voted unanimously to deny Estrada's claim on the presidency. But this only made his supporters even more angry. When Cardinal Sin says of the recent protests that "it is immoral to grab power", it cannot but be viewed as a ridiculous and hypocritical argument, because clearly Sin, Arroyo, the military generals and their supporters condoned what looked to be nothing short of their own power-grab back in January.

The anti-Estrada folks have been saying that the filing of charges against the former leader is his chance to answer them. Again, to the Estrada supporters, this is just another instance of unfair play being instituted by the arrogant elite. To them, it's not that Estrada shouldn't answer the charges. But being vilified and then unceremoniously and illegally run out of office, then made to answer charges from a jail cell, is an insult and a stinging slap in the face.

This is why Mrs Arroyo's continued claims to the high moral ground and to be the defender of democracy ring extremely hollow with the millions of poor in the Philippines. They see her as the usurper of power from a duly elected president. They see her as the one who subverted the constitution, who broke the law. No iron-fisted crackdown or reaching out to the poor masses will ever change that view.

While the poor who had gathered to protest Estrada's arrest were belittled by the church, the elite, the media and the middle classes as having no direction and for not knowing what it is they wanted, they obviously knew what they wanted; Arroyo out, in the same way that Arroyo, the Church and the anti-Estrada folks wanted Joseph Estrada out back in January.

If Mrs Arroyo wants someone to blame for the current chaos in the Philippines, perhaps she should look in the mirror. For clearly it was her and her cabal of supporters in the Catholic Church, the business elite, the media, the middle classes and the military generals who started all of this. By subverting the constitution of the Philippines to achieve what they felt to be a noble cause, they let the genie out of the bottle. Call it a case of reaping what you sow.

If they would've played fair, it wouldn't have come to this.

(Ted Lerner can be reached by email at tedlheyjoe@yahoo.com)

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