Issue Analysis No. 03
June 2005

PRO-PEOPLE POLICIES NEEDED

THE administration perception that the threat of a People Power uprising or of a military coup has waned has apparently emboldened President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo into, among other actions, admitting that it is her voice in the so-called “tapes” of the allegedly wiretapped conversation between her and former Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

Mrs. Arroyo’s admission and apology followed a series of statements and other acts that indicated her growing confidence that she was in no immediate danger of being unseated. She had previously refused to engage her opponents, but during the launch of the Philippine Report on the UN Millenium Development Goals the previous week, Mrs. Arroyo declared that her “detractors” had gone too far, and categorically asserted that she would not be moved from pursuing her economic reforms—or, to put it in another way, that she would cling to the presidency no matter what the cost.

At about the same time, a number of her provincial governor allies including Ilocos Sur Governor Luis Chavit Singson disclosed that in response to a successful attempt to remove Mrs. Arroyo, they would establish autonomous regional governments. While the governors justified this plan in terms of the usual “welfare of our constituents,” the intent was obvious: to frighten the entire country into either passively or actively supporting Mrs. Arroyo, the alternative to the country’s losing her being its Balkanization into small fiefdoms, thanks to Singson and company.

The Arroyo administration, however, has been responding in less obvious ways to the supposed destabilization threats that have arisen because of allegations that Mrs. Arroyo’s husband and son had received jueteng pay-offs, and that those telephone conversations between her and former Commissioner prove that she cheated in the May 2004 elections.

Long before her declaration, Mrs. Arroyo had set into motion responses meant to prevent her ouster. Primarily she’s used the letter of law, especially the laws on sedition and inciting to sedition. To prevent the airing via broadcasting, or their transcription via print, for example, the Secretary of Justice had immediately warned in the aftermath of Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye’s preemptive disclosure of the allegedly wire-tapped conversations that possession of CDs, tapes or transcripts of that phone conversation was illegal under the provisions of the anti-wiretapping act.

Later he announced the filing of sedition charges against former National Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director Samuel Ong, even as the police moved to arrest people on sedition charges for pasting posters on Metro Manila’s grimy walls. Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications Commission issued a press release warning broadcast media that they could lose their licenses and franchises if they aired tapes or CDs of the supposedly wire-tapped phone conversations. Although NTC later said it wasn’t threatening anyone at all, its press release actually said otherwise.

These efforts were by themselves hardly surprising. They occurred in the context of a policy decision for the administration to use the law, the Bill of Rights notwithstanding, to diminish the exercise of free expression including press freedom, and to use the sedition and other national security laws to silence other critics as well as her political enemies.

Far from falling apart as her more optimistic foes have predicted, Mrs. Arroyo has on the contrary become more and more confident. Despite the crisis, for example, she traveled to Hongkong a week ago, and has made herself visible to the media via visits to the provinces and other activities meant to suggest business as usual for the presidency. Despite her contrite expression over TV in the evening of June 27, in some instances there is the hint of a return of the arrogance that together with the growing impoverishment of more and more Filipinos during her watch has helped drive her approval ratings to sub-zero.

Part of the reason for Mrs. Arroyo’s admission that yes, hers is indeed the voice in the “Hello Garci” tapes could be the belief that there remain two seemingly insurmountable barriers to the development of the critical mass that in 1986 and 2001 led to EDSA I and II.

Mrs. Arroyo’s foes have yet to unite on the means of her removal. The impeachment route is rarely mentioned today as a viable option, although there remains the question of whether extra-constitutional acts like a coup or another People Power uprising would be better routes. As for the threat of a coup, that has receded farther and farther into the horizon, given the apparent confusion in the Abat ranks, and the studied silence of Gringo Honasan

As far as who will succeed her is concerned, there is a developing unity against Vice President Noli de Castro’s succeeding Mrs. Arroyo in case she is removed or resigns. But a variety of options to find her replacement has been suggested, among them the Senate President’s assuming the presidency and calling for elections within 45 days, the constitution of a provisional revolutionary government somewhat like what the Aquino government was from February to July in 1986, and the formation of a Council of Leaders.

Both difficulties shed much light on the roots of the present crisis. It was the damage to Philippine electoral processes wrought by generations of an irresponsible and corrupt political class that made both EDSAs necessary as well as possible. Marcos corrupted the political process in 1969 by using the time-tested combination of money and violence—and subsequently demonstrated in the mock elections of 1978 and 1986 how easily elections could be manipulated via a compliant and equally corrupt Commission on Elections.

In both EDSA I and II—although one was triggered by the excesses of a tyranny and the other by the clamor for a responsible and competent leadership--the results were equally disappointing. The changes Filipinos expected did not take place, thus the widespread cynicism over involvement in another People Power uprising. While the majority of Filipinos today believe that there was fraud and more during the May 2004 elections, they doubt if anything would change if those responsible and the beneficiaries are removed from office. This doubt is fueled by past disappointments with all Philippine governments, which basically have been the same in their pursuit of the elite- and foreign-inspired policies that since 1946 have been pursued by every administration without exception.

Critical to public acceptance of any change is the kind of policies those who would replace the Arroyo administration would implement. Those policies must depart from the established ones of foreign dependency, resistance to social reform and the enhancement and defense of elite interests that have impoverished this country. They must include an authentic land reform program that will abolish tenancy, a program of industrialization that will pull the country out of its 19th century backwardness, and a commitment to the provision of health care, education and other social services for the majority.

Whatever and whoever would succeed Mrs. Arroyo must present such a program to the Filipino people. They have long been waiting for it, and those who can put such a program in place will gain a level of legitimacy no government has ever had in this country since 1946 and could end the instability that has plagued the country since 1986.

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