Juridical Guerrilla Warfare

By Raul Pangalangan
This story was taken from www.inq7.net
First posted 03:38am (Mla time) Aug 26, 2005
Inquirer News Service

THE BEST way to kill the impeachment complaint is to wear out the people. No need to show that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is innocent. Just tire the sovereign people, bore them, make them indifferent to whether or not she is guilty. Reduce Gloriagate from a debate about principles to a wager on technicalities bereft of moral content. That is the peril of the vote by the House ofRepresentatives' justice committee to focus first on "prejudicial questions." To paraphrase Sun Tzu, war is like fire. Rather than putting it out, let it burn itself out.

Three impeachment complaints have been filed against President Arroyo, the first, filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano, apparently the weakest. The next step, under the Constitution, is for the proper congressional committee to say whether the complaints are sufficient in form and substance.

However, the Constitution also says: "No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year." Pro-Arroyo congressmen say that the committee must first settle the "prejudicial" issue of whether the Lozano complaint has triggered off the one-year bar and, if yes, whether it can be supplemented by the stronger complaint drafted by opposition lawyers. Their goal, obviously, is to lock in the vulnerable Lozano version and knock out the high-octane opposition draft.

The Supreme Court has laid down the controlling doctrine. In Francisco v. House of Representatives, the Court cited the one-year bar and threw out a second impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Hilario Davide. The anti-Davide forces invoked Rules 16/17 of the impeachment procedure adopted by Congress, which says that "impeachment proceedings [are] deemed initiated" only after the justice committee has acted on the complaint; by that rule, the first complaint couldn't have activated the one-year rule. The Court thus struck down Rules16/17 as unconstitutional and pegged the triggering moment much earlier: when the complaint is filed and referred to the justice committee.

Citing one of the founding fathers of the 1987 Constitution, the Court said: "Father [Joaquin] Bernas further explains: The 'impeachment proceeding' is not initiated when the complaint is transmitted to the Senate for trial [nor] when the House deliberates on the resolution passed on to it by the Committee.... Rather, the proceeding is initiated or begins when a verified complaint is filed and referred to the Committee on Justice for action. This is the initiating step which triggers the series of steps that follow." Pro-Arroyo congressmen now claim that Lozano has tripped the constitutional switch.

But, as Rep. Francis Escudero said at a forum in the University of the Philippines, opposition legislators have anticipated this, and deftly packaged their complaint so that it can either "stand alone" as an independent complaint or merely supplement Lozano's.

There is no technical bar to a supplement. I have heard forced analogies to judicial process, both civil and criminal, all of them inapt to the "sui generis" ("class by itself") nature of impeachment proceedings. The current procedural rules on impeachment are silent on supplements. Therefore, to hinder the other complaints is an exercise of discretion. Our legislators must not wash their hands through technicalities, and be candid enough to confess that they are voting their true selves.

This gap ("lacuna") in the rules beckons us to turn to the "intent of the framers." Note the following exchange in the Constitutional Commission when they drafted the one-year bar.

Commissioner Villacorta: "Does this mean that even if evidence is discovered to support another charge ... a second ... proceeding cannot be initiated [within] one year? ... The intention may be to protect the public official from undue harassment. [But] is this not undue limitation on the accountability of public officers?"

Commissioner Romulo: "Yes, the intention here really is to limit. This is not only to protect public officials ... from harassment but also to allow the [Congress] to do its work, which is lawmaking. Impeachment proceedings take a lot of time."

Hearing the three complaints together will advance this constitutional intent -- no undue "harassment" of the respondent, or additional work for Congress.

But in addition, Rep. Teodoro Locsin shows that there is in fact a proper technical way to construe the three complaints. Congressional time is not normal people's time, he said. Congress can simply stop the clock and by parliamentary fiat freeze time, and the record will not show that they actually debated past midnight. Now by such reckoning, time stood still while Congress was on its constitutionally mandated one-month break. That Lozano filed first in that twilight zone is of no consequence.

Which brings us back to the controlling moment in Francisco, namely, July 25, when Congress re-convened, the "session day" when Speaker Jose de Venecia endorsed the complaints to the justice committee, simultaneously at 11:20 a.m. (recorded in the official Journal). Therefore, Francisco will hold that none of the complaints could have blocked off the others.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. That, shorn of fancy lawyer talk, is one big part of the rule of law. The justices read the one-year bar liberally in favor of the "accused." This gave solace to the Chief Justice, who was worthy, but now it purportedly gives safe haven to President Arroyo, who is not. The solution is not to fudge what the Court said in Francisco, but to carry out our compelling intuitions through the disciplined craft of the law, and in Unger's words, "find the mind's opportunity in the heart's revenge." Remember Sun Tzu: Take away the energy of the enemy, take away their heart. * * *

Comments to passionforreason@gmail.com

(c)2005 www.inq7.net all rights reserved

EMERGENCY POWER IS A FORMULA FOR DICTATORSHIP - ­MAZA

NEWS RELEASE
18 August 2005

For Reference: REP. LIZA LARGOZA MAZA 0920-9134540
Tels: 9316268, 9315001 loc7230;
Jang Monte (Public Information Officer) 0917-8226635

GABRIELA Women's Party Representative Liza Largoza Maza criticized today proposals to give Mrs. Arroyo emergency powers as a formula for dictatorship.

"This emergency power could be abused by the administration not to control oil prices but to control critics and dissenters. It could be used not to manage the oil crisis but to maneuver a prolonged Arroyo leadership in the midst of this political crisis. Giving Mrs. Arroyo emergency powers while the question of the legitimacy of her leadership still hangs only means Martial Rule," said Maza.

The lady solon insisted that the imposition of price control mechanisms as well as the repeal of the oil deregulation law is all that is necessary for the government to arrest oil price increases and bring down oil prices by as much as P3.68 per liter. "These are urgent measures that the government should implement in the midst of increasing oil prices."

Maza cited a study made by think-tank IBON Foundation revealing that from while pump prices should have increased only by P6.91 per liter from 2000 to 2004, an increase of P10.59 per liter have been recorded. IBON's estimate takes into consideration the peso-dollar exchange rate and Dubai crude prices.

"Once the oil deregulation is repealed, government can easily arrest the overpricing being committed by major oil players by keeping oil prices at minimum levels," said Maza as she lashed out on all giants who continue to amass huge profits at the expense of ordinary consumers.

Maza sought the immediate passage of House Bill 1065—An Act Repealing RA 8479: Downstream Oil Deregulation Act of 1998 and House Bill 3219 which seeks to include LPG and kerosene in the list of basic necessities in the Price Act.

"More than a small-scale energy conservation program that will again place the burden of managing oil consumption to ordinary, individual consumers, a measure that is of a larger scale such as the repeal of the oil deregulation law is imperative in the face of skyrocketing world oil prices. Giving the public immediate relief should be a priority."#

Pack Your Bags, Gloria

By: ALAN C. ROBLES
Hot Manila

Perhaps President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo can't take a hint. The most respected and credible members of her cabinet have abandoned her and want her to resign; the Makati Business Club has asked that she stepdown; Cory Aquino twice called on her to relinquish her post. Demonstrations against her are increasing and show no signs of abating, opinion polls show her credibility in the negatives and political allies are turning against her. There's even a web site that's been set up called gmaresign now.com

Might there be something about the word "quit" that Mrs. Arroyo doesn't understand?

She maintains that if there's a case against her, it should be done constitutionally, through impeachment. Here's a quote for her: "Snap elections are unconstitutional, while impeachment is a long process." Who dared say this? Why, it was somebody named Gloria Arroyo - back in 2000 when she was vice-president and demanding that Joseph Estrada resign.

In the purely expedient world the President and her advisers apparently inhabit, nothing matters now except appearances. A pro-Arroyo rally that musters 120,000 people - most of them members of the El Shaddai cult, clients and employees of the loyalist Manila mayor or bussed-in province mates of Mrs. Arroyo -- is seen as proof of her popularity. The refusal of the Catholic hierarchy to call for her resignation is seen as a tremendous victory. A storm is building and the administration's reading tea leaves to check the weather.

To confuse the public, Arroyo allies last week released an alleged wiretap of Joseph Estrada plotting against the government. A shabby, amateurish production , the second wiretap doesn't invalidate the first, which strongly indicates President Arroyo cheating in last year's elections. Also, Estrada is already safely under custody. The persons in the "Garci" tape are not.

Mrs. Arroyo's spin meisters have been so busy conjuring the basest, darkest motives for her opponents (the resigned Cabinet secretaries are "traitors", Cory Aquino wants to protect Hacienda Luisita) that they haven't bothered to check how ridiculous their messages play. The smears are only causing irritation among people who are beginning to suspect their President is both a cheat and a liar, and her spouse could be seriously into graft.

Arroyo strategists might want to consult recent history in Central America and Eastern Europe, which shows that besieged governments that stubbornly cling to power tend to fall the same way, firing off defiant, blustering broadsides just before they suddenly capsize. The record also shows all the presidents ousted the last five years were driven to resign rather than impeached.

If for nothing else, Mrs. Arroyo should resign for an amazing display of crisis mismanagement. A chief executive can't even handle a deadly threat to her political career has no business handling the affairs of millions.

The whole wiretap scandal has been bungled from the get-go. In an alternate Universe in another dimension - one where the Philippines has ethical politicians - this is what an alternate Gloria Arroyo might do: if she were innocent, she would immediately and ferociously deny it, demand an investigation to clear her name, sue her accusers and order election commissioner Virgilio Garcilliano interrogated.

If she were guilty she would immediately apologize and resign, possibly making sure her husband is turned over to investigators.

Pick your poison

Faced with the hair-raising prospect of a Fernando Poe victory, the middle class was a passive accomplice. It turned its face to the wall and refused to see how the Arroyo administration packed the graft-ridden Comelec with allies, and profligately spent public funds on the campaign. Mrs. Arroyo didn't shrink from enlisting the same dirty tricks advisers, the notorious Puno brothers, Joseph Estrada used.

Mrs. Arroyo's middle class supporters could barely wait to rush in with fulsome congratulations when the President made a public confession and promised to "punish" herself by working twice as hard. Some of those supporters, writing on newsgroups, have put a class tone to the dispute: they've dismissed the anti-Arroyo protesters as "motley" because they're either poor or leftist. Presumably, rich and rightwing street demonstrators who support Mrs. Arroyo are not motley.

Civil society has been so misled by the perfumed rallies it used to overthrow Estrada that it's in danger of thinking it has an exclusive franchise on People Power.

The administration has tried to keep People Power off the agenda by insisting on a "constitutional" process. This means going through Congress, where a richly comic drama is being played out. Four years ago, Estrada's enemies were demanding that an envelope proving his corruption be opened, and his supporters blocked the move. Now, Mrs.Arroyo's allies are blocking a motion to play a recording of the wiretap.

Mrs. Arroyo herself has tarred all her current critics"destabilizers", while her propagandists have succeeded in defining "opposition" as consisting solely of Joseph Estrada and his Gangrene Gang. The president's supporters have also put down Susan Roces as a mere actress, forgetting how in 1985 a certain Cory Aquino wasdenigrated as a "mere housewife." Mrs. Aquino's subsequent career shows that it isn't necessarily what a leader can do that's important, it's what she symbolizes.

And right now Mrs. Arroyo symbolizes divisiveness. If this is just thef irst year of her term, it's hard to see her surviving until 2010. Her credibility has taken such a terrific battering that the only way she can recover is by doing something breathtaking and spectacular: repudiating the colossal debt on the useless Bataan reactor; jailing a couple of Marcoses and their cronies and recovering their ill-gotten wealth.

Assuming she survives this year, her administration will lurch along, trailing blood. She'll be hard put pushing her "terror n' taxes" agenda: codifying a national ID scheme, increasing revenues through regressive taxes, and ultimately perpetuating the administration by transitioning to a parliamentary system. And the Supreme Court just dealt her another blow by ordering an injunction against the extended VAT, a centerpiece of the government's economic program.

Weakened by massive graft and corruption, an unjust justice system and poverty, the country does not need a leadership crisis like this. The middle class, business leaders, and conservative politicians fear that throwing Mrs. Arroyo out of office could cause turmoil and economic devastation. They're not looking at the other side of the coin: an Arroyo who hangs on to office could also cause turmoil and economic devastation.

Painful as it seems, the time could soon come when the public will have to make some choices about a new leader. If the middle class refuses to involve itself in this process it might see the landscape dominated by the Estrada clique. Its own fear of bloodshed and violence could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

hotmanila.ph

Copyright 2005 Alan C. Robles All rights reserved editor@hotmanila.ph

COMMENT: The Imperative of Impeachment

By Patricio P. Diaz
MindaNews /04 August 2005

A Publication of the Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center
Vol. IV, No. 072/5 August 2005

GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- The impeachment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has become most imperative. The senators and House of Representatives should cast off partisan loyalties, biases and interests and proceed with the impeachment strictly according to merits. So judging the President is the immediate solution to the political crisis, not the change of the form of government.

The presidential unitary form of government has nothing to do with the very grave doubt in the legitimacy of the President's election in the May 2004 election and the suspicion about her part in the jueteng scandal. The legitimacy and jueteng issues are now being interwoven.

Our political crisis is not about the form of government but about the integrity of the President. The crisis is about moral leadership too bankrupt to sustain political leadership. Integrity must be beyond doubt in order to strengthen leadership and consequently untangle the crisis.

The Substitute

The President thinks a truth commission can sort out the mess. That will be poor substitute to impeachment in determining truth about the charges against her. Impeachment derives its authority from the Constitution.

It's even doubted if the truth commission can come out with the truth. And if it does, what will it do with the President should the truth call for her to vacate the presidency? If the commission finds her just maligned, it will be doubted by the opposition because it derived its authority from the President.

On the contrary, the Constitution has instituted impeachment with the mandate to Congress to investigate, try and convict or acquit an erring President -- defining the impeachable offenses and prescribing removal as the penalty in case of conviction. If the senators, as judges, and the congressmen as prosecutors act as statesmen, their verdict will not be doubted.

By impeachment, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be removed from office if found guilty. That will remove the root of the present political crisis which, like a storm, will abate.

If the President is found innocent of the charges against her after the evidence and witnesses have been subjected to intense and thorough judicial scrutiny, her innocence will restore integrity and confidence in her leadership. That, too, will remove the root of the crisis.

Garci to Zuce

The "Hello, Garci!" or "Gloria tape" played to the Malacañan greporters last June 6 triggered the political crisis embroiling the legitimacy of the President's election. The demand for her to resign built up and snowballed.

The President's admission last June 27 that the woman's voice in the tape was hers intensified the demand instead of defusing it, as calculated. She did not admit wrongdoing. But her owning the voice was enough to confirm the charges of the political, militant and radical oppositions.

"Hello, Garci!" did not die. Last August 1, Michaelangelo S. Zuce surfaced to reveal the well-funded and well-organized special operation in Mindanao intended to make President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo win in that region in the 2004 election by buying the election through the election officials.

Heading the special operation established in 2002 was Virgilio Garcillano, whom Zuce identified as his uncle. Zuce, a Malacañang employee in the office of Secretary Jose Ma. Rufino, the President's political adviser, coordinated the special operation under the direction of Garcillano.

Damaging

According to Zuce, it was he who introduced Garcillano to Rufino to organize and manage the special operation. This implied that among Rufino's functions is the election of the President paid with tax money.

Zuce also revealed that Garcillano, a retired Comelec regional director, worked for the election of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for vice president. His appointment as Comelec Commissioner was demanded by the special operation.

Evidently, however, the special operation was not only in Mindanao but nationwide. Zuce talked of meetings of regional directors and provincial supervisors at hotels in Manila and one at the La Vista residence of the President where the President appealed to them for help and they received money from Lilia Pineda, wife of jueteng lord Rodolfo Pineda.

This tied up the jueteng and election anomaly issues involving the President. Zuce also said in one meeting at La Vista, he saw Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy Jr., who was reported to have said that before the election the regional directors received P2 million each from Pineda.

Zuce's affidavit if sustained and his documentary evidence if proven authentic are very damaging. By identifying the "Louie" in the Garci tape as himself, he authenticated the tape to strengthen the charge of vote-fixing against the President.

Responses

As usual, the Palace denied Zuce's revelations and discredited him. It is expected that in the next news report, Zuce will be buried in the avalanche of libel and damage suits like the jueteng witnesses who implicated the President's husband, son, and brother-in-law. But this will not defuse the crisis.

The Palace said the President will not be distracted from her work, a reiteration of past statements. The President herself said it, "My attention is focused in bringing about change in the lives of Filipinos who are in need." She has stated this many times since her first day as President on January 20, 2001. It only damages her credibility.

In her so-called "media blitz", the President and the Palace want to change the Filipinos' negative impression of her through the media. She's now pictured in the front pages as smiling, holding babies, or tripping along with children.

This will not help defuse the crisis. The President smiling among the unsmiling poor will not drive away poverty, one of the social components of the crisis. Neither will the oft-repeated promises do.

The Only Way

Only the fanatical anti-Gloria believe Zuce and other witnesses likeSandra Cam are telling the truth. Only the Palace and the loyal pro-Gloria believe the exposes are lies. The only fact is: The testimonies and documentary evidence are either true until proven as lies or lies until proven as true. As such, they erode more and more the President's leadership and credibility.

The President must be investigated. Evasion will only worsen the crisis and the bitter division. But only Congress can investigate her through impeachment. To the President's credit, she has dared her political foes and critics to take their cases to Congress.

The pro-administration majority in the House should endorse, not abort, the impeachment. That's the least expected of them. Let the minority prosecute the President at the impeachment court.

Both the pro- and anti-Gloria senators, as impeachment judges, should shed their party loyalty, biases and interests. They should judge the President strictly according to evidence.

The pro-Gloria and the anti-Gloria should not only be ready to accept a fair decision but to unite around such a decision. This, the senators must take to heart.

An innocent verdict can keep President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in office until June 30, 2010 unless her term is shortened by a constitutional amendment. But if such verdict is unfair, it will keep the country bitterly divided.

"Comment" is Mr. Patricio P. Diaz' column for MindaViews, the opinion section of MindaNews. Mr. Diaz is the recipient of a "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Titus Brandsma for his "commitment to education and public information to Mindanawons as Journalist, Educator and Peace Advocate."

You may e-mail your comments to patpdiaz@mindanews.com.)

(c) Copyright 2004 MindaNews

AN OPEN LETTER TO UP PRESIDENT EMERLINDA R. ROMAN

ALL-UP ACADEMIC EMPLOYEES UNION
The Union of UP Faculty and REPS
Member, All-UP Workers Alliance


PROMOTIONS SHOULD NOT BE LIMITED TO FACULTY BUT SHOULD INCLUDE REPS AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF


Dear President Roman:

We congratulate you on your investiture as the 19th UP President and the first woman president of our university.

Your investiture speech "The University of the Philippines: A National University in the 21st Century" delineates the attitude and direction of your administration with regards to the challenges of governing UP in the context of reduced government resources for education.

We are looking forward to working with you on areas of agreement between the union and the UP administration while maintaining our union responsibility of critiquing and opposing policies and projects inimical to the welfare of faculty, REPS, administrative staff and students. But as in our past dealing with you as Chancellor of UP Diliman, we know that our relationship would be one of openness to dialogue and principled disagreement and debate.

At the moment, we would like to bring to your attention our concern over official announcements made by the Chancellors and contained in your speech that "funds have been identified to support faculty promotions this year." This is welcome news as the last promotion in the UP System was in 2000. However, we are concerned that while the call for promotion for the faculty appears to be a "sure thing" with funds clearly earmarked for it, promotions for REPS and administrative staff are still dependent on fund sourcing. You said: "We are also doing our utmost to identify funding sources to allow the promotion of ever-dependable and loyal staff who continue to be by our side in pushing the University forward".

The past three system-wide promotions in 1995, 1997 and 2000 involved all three sectors of UP employees. This is but just considering that promotions not only give recognition to the meritorious service rendered by UP employees but also provide step or rank promotion with its corresponding increase in salary. With no salary increase in the past four years of the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency, promotions are one way of adding to the meager salaries of UP employees. Our REPS and administrative staff receive relatively lower salaries than many faculty members and equity considerations demand that promotion should include them as well.

All the faculty, REPS and staff are here as a team performing the various functions that help the University going. Thus, the All UP Academic Employees Union would like to request you to ensure the simultaneous call for promotions of all UP employees and not to limit such call to the promotion of faculty members alone. With this as a starting point, then guidelines for the sharing of the limited resources among the three sectors can be formulated.

We hope for your consideration.


August 3, 2005

CODAL Relaunch Statement on GMA Ouster, Impeachment and Truth Commission

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. #

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.