UPHOLD THE RULE OF JUSTICE:
RESPECT THE PEOPLE'S SOVEREIGN POWER
A Critical View of Impeachment and the Truth Commission
(22 July 2005
CODAL, hitherto known as the Committee for the Defense of Lawyers, was organized on April 30, 2005 and was borne out of the situation and in response to the killings and attacks against lawyers, judges and the legal profession as a whole as well as on civil liberties. In the light of recent political developments, CODAL believes that the current issues on the "Gloriagate" are legitimate concerns for lawyers as they involve possible violations of the Constitution and threaten the administration of justice.
CODAL concluded in a legal study that the acts of President Arroyo did not merely constitute a "lapse in judgment" but clearly and openly violated several laws and the Constitution and are in fact impeachable offenses. CODAL was one of the first organizations of professionals to ask her to step down.
In view of the misrepresentations that mass actions and people power are unconstitutional, destabilizing and against the "rule of law," CODAL categorically assured the people that the exercise of the people's right to demand for Arroyo to step down is not an "extraconstitutional" or "unconstitutional" act as sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them. In fact and in law, their actions are but a legitimate and democratic exercise of their civil and political liberties.
Given all these, CODAL has come with a consensus to transform the organization and expand its concerns and aptly rename it as Counsels for the Defense of Liberties.
CODAL – the Counsels for the Defense of Liberties - will continue to pursue the call to oust GMA through resignation, not only because she has violated our laws and the Constitution, but also because she has lost the public trust to effectively govern because of serious charges of electoral fraud, corruption, puppetry, and human rights violations amidst a grave economic crisis.
However, since the impeachment process is taking its course, CODAL will critically participate and contribute its individual and collective knowledge, skills and training to help legally prove that GMA is liable for violation of the laws and the Constitution. This, despite the consciousness that it could be a trap to unduly diffuse the heat against her and the situation, confuse the people and provide a purely legalist way out for GMA to escape liability.
However, CODAL finds Vice President Noli de Castro unacceptable as successor as he will just continue the unpopular policies and programs of GMA and would only result in a mere "changing of the guards."
CODAL believes that it is the height of arrogance and self-righteousness to say that no one can replace GMA among 84 million Filipinos.
Instead, CODAL shall support the establishment of a transitional council that will represent and pursue the interests of the majority of our people. CODAL's unified view on the finer aspects on the composition, parameters, nature, duration, safeguards, legal, political and moral bases of said council is currently the subject of a legal study. But certainly, CODAL is against the prospects of the military and the opportunists taking advantage of the council or any
successor government.
What is important for CODAL is the next government's reform agenda – there must be a total overhaul of the electoral system, thoroughgoing elimination of corruption, sustained battle against impunity through serious prosecution of human rights violators and corrupt public
officials, and lasting reforms in the economy that will effectively respond to the challenges of poverty and globalization. The new government should also ensure the protection of lawyers and the legal profession from attacks.
CODAL believes that notwithstanding the impeachment process, the direct action of the people - as an exercise of their sovereign right and again in recognition that all government authority emanates from them and, therefore, a constitutionally-recognized inherent right that we have respected with or without the impeachment – remains a legitimate option.
CODAL further believes that the proposed Truth Commission to be created under and by GMA herself is not only unconstitutional as it finds absolutely no basis in the Constitution but is also suspect and infirm because its members and findings will not have the credibility and capacity to resolve the crisis. It is likely that serious violence will ensue if the decision of the Senate conflicts with that of the Truth Commission. Should the impeachment court convict her, Pres. Arroyo could hold on to power is she is acquitted by her Truth Commission, creating a dangerous constitutional crisis.
CODAL believes that, contrary to the spin doctors of GMA, the people are not tired of mass actions for no one should be tired of bringing and working for meaningful changes in our government and society. As the Counsels for the Defense of Liberties marks its re-launching,
and as it conducts symbolic and political actions complementary to legal moves, it vows to continue to work for the ouster of Mrs. Arroyo and unite on a principled basis with other forces, stand with the people in the defense of their rights and freedoms, and help in definition of a people's agenda that will attempt to bring meaningful changes in their lives. #
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
The Queen' Gambits
THE PRESIDENT: The Unmaking of the President
Mrs. Arroyo is reaping the consequences of the damage she has wrought on key institutions.
by SHEILA S. CORONEL
I Report Special Issue July 2005
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
UNTIL last month, the heavens seemed to have favored Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The economy was picking up, the stock market was trading briskly, and Congress had just passed a new tax measure. For sure, the budget deficit and rising oil prices were something to worry about. At the same time, the opposition seemed bent on raking the jueteng muck. But all these were part of life — and politics — as usual.
After all, the president had won by a convincing margin in 2004, and although doubts about the integrity of the balloting lingered, the main opposition contender in last year's elections, the actor Fernando Poe Jr., was dead and buried. Joseph Estrada was safely languishing in the ennui of luxurious house arrest. And the rest of the opposition, while strident and noisy, was also fractured, discredited, and somewhat dispirited. President Arroyo's popularity may have dipped because of the hard times, but she was clearly, unmistakably in command.
And then came The Tapes. Suddenly, it seemed that the President had lost favor with the stars.
And yet, the stars are not solely to blame. The crisis that has paralyzed the presidency is as much of Arroyo's making as it is of the confluence of circumstances that brought us to where we are now: on the brink, possibly, of another political upheaval.
Blaming the opposition for the current mess gives it too much credit and endows its members with more cunning than they have. Neither the opposition nor the stellar Susan Roces can lay claim to the unraveling of the Arroyo presidency. Gloria Arroyo did that largely on her own. She is reaping the consequences of the damage she and her predecessors have wrought on the electoral process and on key institutions, among them, the Commission on Elections, the military, and the police.
AN INSECURE PRESIDENT
Much more than Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, Arroyo has politicized these and other agencies of government, stunting their professionalism and turning them into puerile props for a president insecure about her mandate and the affections of her people. She has reasons to be insecure. She became president in 2001 only because Estrada fell and she was second in line to occupy Malacañang. Even those who voted for her in 2004 did so mainly because she was the safest bet, not because they believed in her, much less loved her, She was the lesser evil, not the principled choice.
The president's insecurity is also partly due to Edsa 3. Arroyo was traumatized by Labor Day 2001, when thousands of slum dwellers protesting Estrada's arrest came close to breaching the defenses of Malacañang. Even as angry masses were storming the Palace gates, the President remained isolated, unsure of .the loyalty of the military and the police. Edsa 3 defined her presidency and made her acutely aware of her vulnerabilities and perpetually anxious about the stability of her rule.
Since then, Arroyo has exerted every effort to win the allegiance of the military and the police by buying their loyalty through promotions, perks, and special access to her. She used these institutions to quell legitimate threats to her government, like the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny. Nothing wrong with that. But having courted the favor of strategic officers, these agencies were also used for more partisan purposes, including keeping tab of the president's political opponents and, if the conversations in the "Garci" tapes are to be believed, also to ensure her victory in 2004.
The Tapes that have set off the current crisis exist only because the head of Mrs. Arroyo's favorite military agency, the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or ISAFP, ordered the wiretapping of presidential phone pal Virgilio Garcillano. President Arroyo called the elections commissioner 15 times in the span of three weeks in May and June 2004.
The wiretapping, according to military and intelligence sources, was instructed by Malacañang political operatives, who wanted to keep track of the commissioner's movements, for fear that he would favor the opposition instead. "This is because the administration party, as we've learned, considered Garcillano as a vulnerable target of the political opposition for them to be able to cheat in the last elections," a military officer told the Philippine Star a few days after the tape scandal broke.
THE WIRETAPPERS
Since she assumed power, the President has turned ISAFP into a sniffing dog against her enemies, most notably Sen. Panfilo Lacson but also an assortment of other "bad" guys (ex-RAM, ex-Erap, ex- and current communists). ISAFP officers could go straight to President Arroyo and to the First Gentleman, bypassing the chain of command. The president, as Newsbreak reported, also personally handpicked all the ISAFP commanders during her time, starting with the controversial Victor Corpus, who led the charges of "narcopolitics" against Lacson.
But that is a digression. Suffice it to say that Garcillano was wiretapped by ISAFP operatives on orders of their superiors, who in turn got their orders from the Palace.
The wiretaps would not have been made at all had President Arroyo left ISAFP alone and allowed it to operate as an independent, professional intelligence agency free from partisan politics. But even if for some reason ISAFP on its own had made the recordings, these would not have fallen into opposition hands had the morale of ISAFP personnel been high and their commander-in-chief commanded their respect and loyalty.
Intelligence sources say one of the ISAFP agents linked to the release of the tapes, the ill-starred T/Sgt. Vidal Doble, is a "loyal soldier" who would probably not have succumbed to opposition inducements to be part of the plot if ISAFP were a more disciplined and tightly run organization.
The problem is that President Arroyo's sense of institutions is overwhelmed by her inherent insecurity and instincts for survival. She has put her own partisan political interests over the long-term development of the institutions of government. The scandal over The Tapes shows the 'pitfalls of this approach: rather than bolstering her rule, the weakened institutions only further heightened her vulnerability.
CORRUPTING INSTITUTIONS
Take the Comelec: Arroyo went farther than either Ramos or Estrada ever dared. Ramos, who had ambitions to hang on to the presidency, named his trusted knaves — the autocratic and mercurial Bernardo Pardo and the "kissing lolo" Manolo Gorospe to the commission. Estrada got the controversial professor Luz Tangcangco, who used the Comelec to settle old academic scores and ended up being so powerful that she single-handedly delayed automation of the counting.
Instead of rebuilding the Comelec's shattered credibility by naming respectable commissioners, Arroyo handpicked a political ally, Benjamin Abalos, to head the commission. Just as the 2004 presidential campaign was kicking off, she also named Garcillano, a known dagdag-bawas (vote padding and shaving) expert, and Manuel Barcelona Jr., her campaign contributor, as commissioners. These appointments contributed to the further weakening of the Comelec's institutional capabilities and effectiveness, thereby only contributing to the general unease about the count. Thus, even if she really and truly won in 2004, the Comelec's bad performance darkened the shadow of doubt that hung over the results of the voting.
After The Tapes, that shadow is now a huge, ominous cloud. Comelec's credibility is now completely shattered. Thanks to President Arroyo's phone calls, it's one key institution now wallowing in the muck.
As this whole affair unravels, one wonders which agency of government will next be covered in slime. The revelations in The Tapes of the collusion of the military and the police in election fraud will likely take on a life of its own. As the opposition gets the upper hand, it is more than possible that insiders in the police and the armed forces who were part of that conspiracy will talk.
THE POLITICS OF DIRTY TRICKS
Apart from these, the staff and resources of civilian agencies of government were also used for the campaign. There's Philhealth, the state insurance company that issued millions of health cards that Arroyo gave away as largesse during the campaign. Part of the funding for those health cards came from the medicare program of the Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration or OWWA, which authorized the possibly illegal fund diversion. The Philhealth chief then, Francisco Duque III, is a neighbor of the Arroyos at La Vista and has been rewarded for his role in the elections by being named health secretary, replacing the more professional Manuel Dayrit.
There's the Department of Agriculture (DA), headed until last week by lawyer Arthur Yap, Arroyo's former student and a known crony of the First Gentleman. The DA released millions of pesos in fertilizer subsidies to win the support of local officials. During the campaign, Yap headed the National Food Authority, which was reported to be giving out free rice as part of the effort to win votes for Arroyo in the May 2004 polls.
There's the Department of Public Works and Highways, which implemented the road-repair programs that oiled the administration's patronage machine. The current chief of that department, former police top gun Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane, is another officer known to be close to the First Gentleman.
There's of course the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corp. or Pagcor, headed by yet another close buddy of the First Gentleman, Ephraim Genuino. Pagcor has been accused of releasing millions to fund various doleout projects associated with the presidential campaign. Genuino was also reported to have handed money to fund Garcillano's postelection manipulation of the count (see the article, "Master Operator," in this issue).
In her desire to be elected president, Gloria Arroyo (with the more than ample help of her husband) mobilized the whole machinery of govemment for her campaign, in the process wreaking havoc on key institutions. Having so used the police in the elections, even mobilizing them to do a parallel count, how can she now discipline them over such matters as jueteng, for example? Having played favorites with the generals, how can she now punish them for the corruption that is ravaging the armed forces? Having owed so much to the Garcias of Cebu for her landslide win in the province, how can she now get rid of Winston Garcia, who has been accused of messing around with state pension funds?
THE PRICE OF VICTORY
Her victory (if she really won) was exacted at a very high price: the effectiveness and credibility of the most important office of all — the Office of the President. The conduct of the elections and the use of state resources for the campaign took the luster out of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's electoral triumph. Even without The Tapes, the long count and the blatant use of government resources did little to shore up the Office of the President.
The cynical public response, first to Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye's two tapes and later, to President Arroyo's apology and her banishment of the First Gentleman, shows how little trust and respect is left in the office. The distrust is reflected not so much in street protests, but in the ring tones, the jokes, and the blogs. These are not just forms of entertainment, they are cries of anger and disapproval. Malacañang's belated recognition of the extent of public disaffection only shows how unfeeling of the pulse of the people it has become.
It is doubtful that the public can now be appeased by such actions as Big Mike's disappearing act. The First Gentleman's voluntary exile is the belated acknowledgment of the damage he has wrought on the presidency. The "FG's" parallel power structure and his intervention in government appointments and contracts has so diminished the Office of the President, his banishment is unlikely to revive a mortally wounded presidency.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Finally, and most importantly, there is the unfinished business of Edsa 2, Edsa 3, and Elections 2004. The poor were left out of Edsa 2, when they felt that the Manila elite and middle class deprived them of their president. Edsa 3 was their response, but that went largely unheeded. In 2004, they voted in droves for Fernando Poe Jr. If they were indeed robbed of their vote, then they had been, in the span of just three years, twice denied their president.
The last elections showed the class divide, with the middle class and the business community supporting the "safe choice." They applauded Gloria Arroyo's victory and paid little heed to the charges of fraud, reasoning that all sides cheat in Philippine elections anyway, and besides, the incumbent's margin was significant enough, even discounting the margin of fraud. Thus, the pollwatch groups, the survey agencies, the Roman Catholic Church, and the majority in Congress took what they deemed was the prudent stance: despite some doubt, the lesser evil seemed to have won, so there was no point in rocking the boat.
Now that The Tapes have shaken the boat, they are in a real dilemma. Accustomed in Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 to taking the high ground and marching in the streets against discredited presidents, they are now the ones calling for calm and sobriety. In 1986 and 2001, they advocated "people power" over constitutional and legal processes, but today they are the ones arguing for stability and "the rule of law." The shoe is on the other foot. Other forces now claim the high ground.
The businessmen and the middle class can, if they wish, blame President Arroyo for making their safe choice now seem like an unprincipled one. While they ponder, the political initiative is being wrested away from them.
If this crisis is drawn out, then the very system that put Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in power will be put in question. This did not happen in Edsa 2: Erap's transgressions were seen as the excesses of an individual, not the product of a political system that is rotten to the core. Yet it should be clear by now that our woes cannot be blamed solely on the wrongdoings of individuals; they are systemic and structural. That was why, even with Erap gone, it was business as usual — jueteng, relatives dipping their fingers in the public coffers, corrupt politicians taking cuts from government contracts. The scandals that have rocked the Arroyo presidency, like those that booted Estrada out of power, are all signs that the system remains fundamentally unchanged even if it is fundamentally unsound.
It is a system that is made for scandal and crisis. Even if President Arroyo weathers this one, another crisis is likely in the offing. And even if she were replaced, as long as the system remains the way it is, we will remain trapped in the politics of perpetual scandal and recurring crisis.
Mrs. Arroyo is reaping the consequences of the damage she has wrought on key institutions.
by SHEILA S. CORONEL
I Report Special Issue July 2005
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
UNTIL last month, the heavens seemed to have favored Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The economy was picking up, the stock market was trading briskly, and Congress had just passed a new tax measure. For sure, the budget deficit and rising oil prices were something to worry about. At the same time, the opposition seemed bent on raking the jueteng muck. But all these were part of life — and politics — as usual.
After all, the president had won by a convincing margin in 2004, and although doubts about the integrity of the balloting lingered, the main opposition contender in last year's elections, the actor Fernando Poe Jr., was dead and buried. Joseph Estrada was safely languishing in the ennui of luxurious house arrest. And the rest of the opposition, while strident and noisy, was also fractured, discredited, and somewhat dispirited. President Arroyo's popularity may have dipped because of the hard times, but she was clearly, unmistakably in command.
And then came The Tapes. Suddenly, it seemed that the President had lost favor with the stars.
And yet, the stars are not solely to blame. The crisis that has paralyzed the presidency is as much of Arroyo's making as it is of the confluence of circumstances that brought us to where we are now: on the brink, possibly, of another political upheaval.
Blaming the opposition for the current mess gives it too much credit and endows its members with more cunning than they have. Neither the opposition nor the stellar Susan Roces can lay claim to the unraveling of the Arroyo presidency. Gloria Arroyo did that largely on her own. She is reaping the consequences of the damage she and her predecessors have wrought on the electoral process and on key institutions, among them, the Commission on Elections, the military, and the police.
AN INSECURE PRESIDENT
Much more than Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, Arroyo has politicized these and other agencies of government, stunting their professionalism and turning them into puerile props for a president insecure about her mandate and the affections of her people. She has reasons to be insecure. She became president in 2001 only because Estrada fell and she was second in line to occupy Malacañang. Even those who voted for her in 2004 did so mainly because she was the safest bet, not because they believed in her, much less loved her, She was the lesser evil, not the principled choice.
The president's insecurity is also partly due to Edsa 3. Arroyo was traumatized by Labor Day 2001, when thousands of slum dwellers protesting Estrada's arrest came close to breaching the defenses of Malacañang. Even as angry masses were storming the Palace gates, the President remained isolated, unsure of .the loyalty of the military and the police. Edsa 3 defined her presidency and made her acutely aware of her vulnerabilities and perpetually anxious about the stability of her rule.
Since then, Arroyo has exerted every effort to win the allegiance of the military and the police by buying their loyalty through promotions, perks, and special access to her. She used these institutions to quell legitimate threats to her government, like the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny. Nothing wrong with that. But having courted the favor of strategic officers, these agencies were also used for more partisan purposes, including keeping tab of the president's political opponents and, if the conversations in the "Garci" tapes are to be believed, also to ensure her victory in 2004.
The Tapes that have set off the current crisis exist only because the head of Mrs. Arroyo's favorite military agency, the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or ISAFP, ordered the wiretapping of presidential phone pal Virgilio Garcillano. President Arroyo called the elections commissioner 15 times in the span of three weeks in May and June 2004.
The wiretapping, according to military and intelligence sources, was instructed by Malacañang political operatives, who wanted to keep track of the commissioner's movements, for fear that he would favor the opposition instead. "This is because the administration party, as we've learned, considered Garcillano as a vulnerable target of the political opposition for them to be able to cheat in the last elections," a military officer told the Philippine Star a few days after the tape scandal broke.
THE WIRETAPPERS
Since she assumed power, the President has turned ISAFP into a sniffing dog against her enemies, most notably Sen. Panfilo Lacson but also an assortment of other "bad" guys (ex-RAM, ex-Erap, ex- and current communists). ISAFP officers could go straight to President Arroyo and to the First Gentleman, bypassing the chain of command. The president, as Newsbreak reported, also personally handpicked all the ISAFP commanders during her time, starting with the controversial Victor Corpus, who led the charges of "narcopolitics" against Lacson.
But that is a digression. Suffice it to say that Garcillano was wiretapped by ISAFP operatives on orders of their superiors, who in turn got their orders from the Palace.
The wiretaps would not have been made at all had President Arroyo left ISAFP alone and allowed it to operate as an independent, professional intelligence agency free from partisan politics. But even if for some reason ISAFP on its own had made the recordings, these would not have fallen into opposition hands had the morale of ISAFP personnel been high and their commander-in-chief commanded their respect and loyalty.
Intelligence sources say one of the ISAFP agents linked to the release of the tapes, the ill-starred T/Sgt. Vidal Doble, is a "loyal soldier" who would probably not have succumbed to opposition inducements to be part of the plot if ISAFP were a more disciplined and tightly run organization.
The problem is that President Arroyo's sense of institutions is overwhelmed by her inherent insecurity and instincts for survival. She has put her own partisan political interests over the long-term development of the institutions of government. The scandal over The Tapes shows the 'pitfalls of this approach: rather than bolstering her rule, the weakened institutions only further heightened her vulnerability.
CORRUPTING INSTITUTIONS
Take the Comelec: Arroyo went farther than either Ramos or Estrada ever dared. Ramos, who had ambitions to hang on to the presidency, named his trusted knaves — the autocratic and mercurial Bernardo Pardo and the "kissing lolo" Manolo Gorospe to the commission. Estrada got the controversial professor Luz Tangcangco, who used the Comelec to settle old academic scores and ended up being so powerful that she single-handedly delayed automation of the counting.
Instead of rebuilding the Comelec's shattered credibility by naming respectable commissioners, Arroyo handpicked a political ally, Benjamin Abalos, to head the commission. Just as the 2004 presidential campaign was kicking off, she also named Garcillano, a known dagdag-bawas (vote padding and shaving) expert, and Manuel Barcelona Jr., her campaign contributor, as commissioners. These appointments contributed to the further weakening of the Comelec's institutional capabilities and effectiveness, thereby only contributing to the general unease about the count. Thus, even if she really and truly won in 2004, the Comelec's bad performance darkened the shadow of doubt that hung over the results of the voting.
After The Tapes, that shadow is now a huge, ominous cloud. Comelec's credibility is now completely shattered. Thanks to President Arroyo's phone calls, it's one key institution now wallowing in the muck.
As this whole affair unravels, one wonders which agency of government will next be covered in slime. The revelations in The Tapes of the collusion of the military and the police in election fraud will likely take on a life of its own. As the opposition gets the upper hand, it is more than possible that insiders in the police and the armed forces who were part of that conspiracy will talk.
THE POLITICS OF DIRTY TRICKS
Apart from these, the staff and resources of civilian agencies of government were also used for the campaign. There's Philhealth, the state insurance company that issued millions of health cards that Arroyo gave away as largesse during the campaign. Part of the funding for those health cards came from the medicare program of the Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration or OWWA, which authorized the possibly illegal fund diversion. The Philhealth chief then, Francisco Duque III, is a neighbor of the Arroyos at La Vista and has been rewarded for his role in the elections by being named health secretary, replacing the more professional Manuel Dayrit.
There's the Department of Agriculture (DA), headed until last week by lawyer Arthur Yap, Arroyo's former student and a known crony of the First Gentleman. The DA released millions of pesos in fertilizer subsidies to win the support of local officials. During the campaign, Yap headed the National Food Authority, which was reported to be giving out free rice as part of the effort to win votes for Arroyo in the May 2004 polls.
There's the Department of Public Works and Highways, which implemented the road-repair programs that oiled the administration's patronage machine. The current chief of that department, former police top gun Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane, is another officer known to be close to the First Gentleman.
There's of course the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corp. or Pagcor, headed by yet another close buddy of the First Gentleman, Ephraim Genuino. Pagcor has been accused of releasing millions to fund various doleout projects associated with the presidential campaign. Genuino was also reported to have handed money to fund Garcillano's postelection manipulation of the count (see the article, "Master Operator," in this issue).
In her desire to be elected president, Gloria Arroyo (with the more than ample help of her husband) mobilized the whole machinery of govemment for her campaign, in the process wreaking havoc on key institutions. Having so used the police in the elections, even mobilizing them to do a parallel count, how can she now discipline them over such matters as jueteng, for example? Having played favorites with the generals, how can she now punish them for the corruption that is ravaging the armed forces? Having owed so much to the Garcias of Cebu for her landslide win in the province, how can she now get rid of Winston Garcia, who has been accused of messing around with state pension funds?
THE PRICE OF VICTORY
Her victory (if she really won) was exacted at a very high price: the effectiveness and credibility of the most important office of all — the Office of the President. The conduct of the elections and the use of state resources for the campaign took the luster out of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's electoral triumph. Even without The Tapes, the long count and the blatant use of government resources did little to shore up the Office of the President.
The cynical public response, first to Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye's two tapes and later, to President Arroyo's apology and her banishment of the First Gentleman, shows how little trust and respect is left in the office. The distrust is reflected not so much in street protests, but in the ring tones, the jokes, and the blogs. These are not just forms of entertainment, they are cries of anger and disapproval. Malacañang's belated recognition of the extent of public disaffection only shows how unfeeling of the pulse of the people it has become.
It is doubtful that the public can now be appeased by such actions as Big Mike's disappearing act. The First Gentleman's voluntary exile is the belated acknowledgment of the damage he has wrought on the presidency. The "FG's" parallel power structure and his intervention in government appointments and contracts has so diminished the Office of the President, his banishment is unlikely to revive a mortally wounded presidency.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Finally, and most importantly, there is the unfinished business of Edsa 2, Edsa 3, and Elections 2004. The poor were left out of Edsa 2, when they felt that the Manila elite and middle class deprived them of their president. Edsa 3 was their response, but that went largely unheeded. In 2004, they voted in droves for Fernando Poe Jr. If they were indeed robbed of their vote, then they had been, in the span of just three years, twice denied their president.
The last elections showed the class divide, with the middle class and the business community supporting the "safe choice." They applauded Gloria Arroyo's victory and paid little heed to the charges of fraud, reasoning that all sides cheat in Philippine elections anyway, and besides, the incumbent's margin was significant enough, even discounting the margin of fraud. Thus, the pollwatch groups, the survey agencies, the Roman Catholic Church, and the majority in Congress took what they deemed was the prudent stance: despite some doubt, the lesser evil seemed to have won, so there was no point in rocking the boat.
Now that The Tapes have shaken the boat, they are in a real dilemma. Accustomed in Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 to taking the high ground and marching in the streets against discredited presidents, they are now the ones calling for calm and sobriety. In 1986 and 2001, they advocated "people power" over constitutional and legal processes, but today they are the ones arguing for stability and "the rule of law." The shoe is on the other foot. Other forces now claim the high ground.
The businessmen and the middle class can, if they wish, blame President Arroyo for making their safe choice now seem like an unprincipled one. While they ponder, the political initiative is being wrested away from them.
If this crisis is drawn out, then the very system that put Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in power will be put in question. This did not happen in Edsa 2: Erap's transgressions were seen as the excesses of an individual, not the product of a political system that is rotten to the core. Yet it should be clear by now that our woes cannot be blamed solely on the wrongdoings of individuals; they are systemic and structural. That was why, even with Erap gone, it was business as usual — jueteng, relatives dipping their fingers in the public coffers, corrupt politicians taking cuts from government contracts. The scandals that have rocked the Arroyo presidency, like those that booted Estrada out of power, are all signs that the system remains fundamentally unchanged even if it is fundamentally unsound.
It is a system that is made for scandal and crisis. Even if President Arroyo weathers this one, another crisis is likely in the offing. And even if she were replaced, as long as the system remains the way it is, we will remain trapped in the politics of perpetual scandal and recurring crisis.
Legend of the 'Fall'
By Noralyn Mustafa
Inquirer News Service
First posted 01:43am (Manila Time) July 25, 2005
CONGENITAL, habitual, pathological, incurable, compulsive, hypocritical, vicious, immoral. Never had I read as many modifiers being used to describe the noun "liar." These-and others too embarrassing to print-were in the text messages that came in from readers and friends after GloriaMacapagal-Arroyo delivered her "I'm sorry" speech. (I learned from some colleagues that the messages crisscrossed the country that night in different variations.)
Which got me to thinking: when was the last time the Filipino people called their President (however he or she became one) a congenital, habitual, pathological, incurable, compulsive, hypocritical, vicious, immoral liar?
This was a very bothersome thought, because from it, all else follow.
It is, as Sen. Panfilo Lacson described in his "True State of the Nation" address delivered last Friday, the debilitating cancer that has contaminated and corroded the moral and social fiber of our nation.
And because of this, nothing is going to work. Not the elaborate attempts to cover up or tone down the effects of the so-called Garcitapes, not the supposed demonstrations of support from local government officials; neither the frequent "kodakan" and walk-abouts with Cabinet secretaries and other allies, all of which only come off as cheap theater.
Because of this, every statement Ms Arroyo issues, every television appearance or radio broadcast she makes is now greeted only with more derision and/or laughter.
Not even the impeccable reputations of the personalities nominated to the truth commission she proposes can lend a shred of credibility to that body, simply because lying and truth are contradictory, and one cannot result from the other. We are confident that these respected individuals will choose to spare themselves the ignominy of being used in this highly oxymoronic endeavor.
Never has the presidency been so disgraced. And never have we, as a people, been so degraded as when her allies kept on scaring us with declarations that there is "no alternative" to Ms Arroyo, implying that the best that the Filipino race can produce is, to quote Neal Cruz, "an incoherent midget."
Not a few seemed disappointed with the very mild and motherly speech of Susan Roces in the Makati rally, which was in direct contrast to that famous fire-and-brimstone salvo she spewed on Ms Arroyo on television.
But the Makati speech was perfect. As simple as the Ten Commandments, as precise as the Panatang Makabayan which, she told the youth who were at the rally, "it seems we, your elders, have now forgotten." Because, next to the home, it is the school and the church-education and religion-where we are taught not to bear false witness and to love our country enough so that we do not screw our countrymen from Day One of our assumption to the highest office of the land.
And Susan Roces did not have to go to Georgetown University to learn these lessons.
After all, even the value of education, which really means drawing out and developing what we intrinsically are, depends to a very large extent on the moral framework of the recipient.
Which is why one can understand how Luli Arroyo, acknowledged like her mother for her academic excellence-diplomatic studies in her case-could engage in such undiplomatic language as "porke't maganda ka, actress ka, may mga award ka sa pag-artista, kaya mo na (maging presidente)." (Being an awarded actress does not mean you can be president.)
Of course, had Inday stooped to that level, she could very well have replied "porke't may doctorate ka, kahit ka dakilang sinungaling, pwede kang mamuno?" (And just because one has a Ph. D., no matter if one is a liar, then can be president?) But then Ms Poe is what my mother would call "a lady." And she doesn't need a college degree to be one.
This is the reason I am very glad that we have someone like there markable in-your-face Rep. Francis Escudero overseeing the impeachment complaint. He is the kind who-as he has done and proved-can keep his sights above the dizzying mountain of sins that MsArroyo has committed against us, and can lump them all up under three focused headings that we can all comprehend: lying, cheating and stealing.
Don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat. That's what we were taught as early as Grade I by our underpaid teachers in the public schools. Surely, the good sisters in Assumption College never ceased teaching the same, and with much more zeal.
No, let us not, as the administration so ardently desires, allow ourselves to be distracted by the legal labyrinth regarding the source of the wiretapped tapes or their admissibility as evidence; or by the maelstrom of statistics proving alleged accomplishments, regularly coming out of Rep. Joey Salceda's bag of tricks; or by Secretary MikeDefensor's deafening defense of the indefensible.
Neither should we torment ourselves by wondering about the moves of the opposition, as to what they are doing to remove from our midst the cause of all our miseries here at home and the cause of all our shame in the global community.
I am willing to give the opposition my trust and can only hope that it will not betray us. Because Ms Arroyo has so damaged our collective psyche that we have almost totally lost trust in each other and in our institutions.
Her recently acquired propensity to quote from the Scriptures (anability, indeed, that even the devil can and does exercise) might even, heaven forbid, make us lose our trust in the Almighty. And that will be our perdition.
String up all video clips of the Cabinet in prayer before each meeting and observe. While all heads are bowed, Ms Arroyo is smiling at the camera, or looking at someone across the table, or up at the ceiling. That is the "Omen." Be forewarned.
Inquirer News Service
First posted 01:43am (Manila Time) July 25, 2005
CONGENITAL, habitual, pathological, incurable, compulsive, hypocritical, vicious, immoral. Never had I read as many modifiers being used to describe the noun "liar." These-and others too embarrassing to print-were in the text messages that came in from readers and friends after GloriaMacapagal-Arroyo delivered her "I'm sorry" speech. (I learned from some colleagues that the messages crisscrossed the country that night in different variations.)
Which got me to thinking: when was the last time the Filipino people called their President (however he or she became one) a congenital, habitual, pathological, incurable, compulsive, hypocritical, vicious, immoral liar?
This was a very bothersome thought, because from it, all else follow.
It is, as Sen. Panfilo Lacson described in his "True State of the Nation" address delivered last Friday, the debilitating cancer that has contaminated and corroded the moral and social fiber of our nation.
And because of this, nothing is going to work. Not the elaborate attempts to cover up or tone down the effects of the so-called Garcitapes, not the supposed demonstrations of support from local government officials; neither the frequent "kodakan" and walk-abouts with Cabinet secretaries and other allies, all of which only come off as cheap theater.
Because of this, every statement Ms Arroyo issues, every television appearance or radio broadcast she makes is now greeted only with more derision and/or laughter.
Not even the impeccable reputations of the personalities nominated to the truth commission she proposes can lend a shred of credibility to that body, simply because lying and truth are contradictory, and one cannot result from the other. We are confident that these respected individuals will choose to spare themselves the ignominy of being used in this highly oxymoronic endeavor.
Never has the presidency been so disgraced. And never have we, as a people, been so degraded as when her allies kept on scaring us with declarations that there is "no alternative" to Ms Arroyo, implying that the best that the Filipino race can produce is, to quote Neal Cruz, "an incoherent midget."
Not a few seemed disappointed with the very mild and motherly speech of Susan Roces in the Makati rally, which was in direct contrast to that famous fire-and-brimstone salvo she spewed on Ms Arroyo on television.
But the Makati speech was perfect. As simple as the Ten Commandments, as precise as the Panatang Makabayan which, she told the youth who were at the rally, "it seems we, your elders, have now forgotten." Because, next to the home, it is the school and the church-education and religion-where we are taught not to bear false witness and to love our country enough so that we do not screw our countrymen from Day One of our assumption to the highest office of the land.
And Susan Roces did not have to go to Georgetown University to learn these lessons.
After all, even the value of education, which really means drawing out and developing what we intrinsically are, depends to a very large extent on the moral framework of the recipient.
Which is why one can understand how Luli Arroyo, acknowledged like her mother for her academic excellence-diplomatic studies in her case-could engage in such undiplomatic language as "porke't maganda ka, actress ka, may mga award ka sa pag-artista, kaya mo na (maging presidente)." (Being an awarded actress does not mean you can be president.)
Of course, had Inday stooped to that level, she could very well have replied "porke't may doctorate ka, kahit ka dakilang sinungaling, pwede kang mamuno?" (And just because one has a Ph. D., no matter if one is a liar, then can be president?) But then Ms Poe is what my mother would call "a lady." And she doesn't need a college degree to be one.
This is the reason I am very glad that we have someone like there markable in-your-face Rep. Francis Escudero overseeing the impeachment complaint. He is the kind who-as he has done and proved-can keep his sights above the dizzying mountain of sins that MsArroyo has committed against us, and can lump them all up under three focused headings that we can all comprehend: lying, cheating and stealing.
Don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat. That's what we were taught as early as Grade I by our underpaid teachers in the public schools. Surely, the good sisters in Assumption College never ceased teaching the same, and with much more zeal.
No, let us not, as the administration so ardently desires, allow ourselves to be distracted by the legal labyrinth regarding the source of the wiretapped tapes or their admissibility as evidence; or by the maelstrom of statistics proving alleged accomplishments, regularly coming out of Rep. Joey Salceda's bag of tricks; or by Secretary MikeDefensor's deafening defense of the indefensible.
Neither should we torment ourselves by wondering about the moves of the opposition, as to what they are doing to remove from our midst the cause of all our miseries here at home and the cause of all our shame in the global community.
I am willing to give the opposition my trust and can only hope that it will not betray us. Because Ms Arroyo has so damaged our collective psyche that we have almost totally lost trust in each other and in our institutions.
Her recently acquired propensity to quote from the Scriptures (anability, indeed, that even the devil can and does exercise) might even, heaven forbid, make us lose our trust in the Almighty. And that will be our perdition.
String up all video clips of the Cabinet in prayer before each meeting and observe. While all heads are bowed, Ms Arroyo is smiling at the camera, or looking at someone across the table, or up at the ceiling. That is the "Omen." Be forewarned.
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