Is the Philippines becoming ungovernable?

Is the Philippines becoming ungovernable?-1

July 9, 2005

Philippines Archive

On 22 February 1986, Defense Minister Ponce Enrile and Vice Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos of the Philippine Armed Forces held a press conference in which they withdrew their support from Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, and accused him of cheating in the elections held two weeks prior [*]. The two ment then holed up in military barracks facing each other on opposite sides of Epiphanio de los Santos Avenida (EDSA), an immense boulevard that runs through Quezon City (the capital district of Manilla). Gen. Fabian Ver, still loyal to Marcos and commanding most of the army, showed up and an armed standoff began. An hour into the standoff, Cardinal Jaime Sin called on Philippinos to go to the scene and supply the rebel forces with food and emotional support. With tens of thousands of nuns and priests arriving to support the defection, Gen. Ver was unable to besiege the defecting barracks. The tens of thousands swelled over the next few days, until 3 million Philippinos were jammed into EDSA.

Additional forces arriving at Camp Crame and Aguinaldo, under orders to retake them, instead defected and emerged from helicopters to the cheers and hugs of the crowd. On the 25th (a Tuesday), two presidential inaugurations occurred in Quezon City; two Presidents, two cabinets, and a rift right through the middle of the RP's state. Marcos then got on the phone with US Senator Paul Laxalt, who advised him to give up. At 9PM, the Marcos left the palace by helicopter and Corazon Aquina was now the leader of the country. It was, as I recall, impossible not to feel a great sense of delight and hope that week.

In the following years, Aquino was obligated to make unpopular compromises and faced no fewer than seven coup attempts, all of them involving this guy (Gregorio Honasan). In Philippine politics, ideology is not as important as sincerity and authenticity, and while Lt. Col. Honasan would be regarded in most countries as either a menace or a buffoon, in the RP a large cohort regard him as just so incredibly... sincere... that they don't appear to care very much what he said.

In the years since then, I've become far more cynical about the EDSA movement. EDSA was a coup by a faction of the military against another, in an attempt to forestall personal risk to two particular men. Enrile had been involved in the witless scheme to link the late Benigno Aquino to an attempt on his life—exposing Aquino to indictment for treason. Now the people cheered him as a liberator. Like other juntas at the end of their rope (Argentina's 1930-1946 junta is another example), the last reshuffling of the generals left only the "people" as a grounds for legitimization.

Honasan, the perennial leader of coups against the constitutional government, received amnesty and ran successfully for senate. He continued to castigate the head of state for betraying EDSA, selling out to the US (!), and whatever sorts of things a compulsive rebel is supposed to say. In the meantime, a huge number of Filipinos looked at the phenomenon of Honasan, or the craven toadying of "nationalist" leaders to US or European officials, and felt profound despair. Was it really worth risking one's life for the RP and its dignity, when so many voters or civil servants would enable knaves to sell the country to the Yanks at whatever the Yanks were willing to pay?

Aquino was succeeded by the former defecting Vice Chief of Staff, Fidel Ramos. This tended to reflect the continuity of rule by a particular class of technocrats and big land owners in the RP; only, now, the administration was more professional. Moreover, a permanent breach had opened between the national Catholic Church and the economic nationalists who now dominated the technocratic caste of civil servants. The Church is exceptionally powerful in the RP, far more so than in Latin America, because it is (a) unified under Cardinal Sin, an exceptionally shrewd politician, (b) the consistently oppositional character of the Church in post-EDSA politics, and (c) the historic association of the Catholic church as a confessional counterweight to the Protestant USA. Ramos was, however, Protestant and had long been responsible for coordinating RP collaboration with Washington. After all, he was a military man who defected from the 2nd highest position in the RP military (please see Schirmir, Karapatan).

Aquino endorsed Ramos as successor; later, in 1998, he was succeeded by a popular actor, Joseph "Erap" Estrada. Pres. Estrada was elected on a wave of populist enthusiasm. If Marcos had been ousted, it could only have been because the USA had betrayed him; therefore, Marcos was now a fellow victim of the USA. Estrada capitalized on lower-class resentment of the middle class, who now rallied behind the scrappy image of Estrada. He at once rehabilitated the Marcos elites [*], bringing down both fear and outrage by the civil service and Manilla bourgeois [*]. At the same time, the international financial crisis of 1997-98 had hit the RP very hard, and he was forced to lay off state employees. His military campaign against Abu Sayyaf insurgents in the south was popular, but his opposition—which included his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo—was regarded as safely "tough" on the insurgents as well.

In the end, it was gambling that destroyed the Erap Presidency: he had come to power enjoying Catholic opposition to his prdecessor, but introduced state-run gambling, thereby destroying Catholic support from the start. In October of 2000, a former friend accused him of taking bribes from gambling syndicates, and a campaign began to impeach him. In November, he admitted accepting bribes, and impeachment proceedings began. He was ousted by massive demonstrations in January 2001, and succeeded by VP Arroyo. Estrada was arrested and later tried (unsuccessfully) for bribery.

(To be continued)

Is the Philippines becoming ungovernable?-1

July 9, 2005

Philippines Archive

No one can accuse Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of being a bad student. She She attended Georgetown University in Washington, DC, then earned a doctorate in economics from the top school in the country, while bearing three children. By the age of 40 she was invited by Pres. Aquino to serve in the new government as Assistant Secretary of Trade & Industry. Two years later, she was in charge of the country's Garments and Textile Export Board (textiles are the most important industry in the country), then, after Ms. Aquino's term of office ended, she ran for senate. In 1998, then-Pres. Fidel Ramos advised her to run for vice president (rather than president) on his LAKAS party ticket; she did, and won (in the RP, the VP runs separately from the President). The president was from the opposite camp: Partido ñg Masang Pilipino (Coalition of the Philippine Masses, a grouping replaced by the Nationalist People's Coalition). While political parties in the RP are, for the most part, ideology-neutral, they do have intense sectional and personal animosities. Estrada, the new president of the RP, represented a populist neo-liberalism, under which the labor-intensive industries like gambling, were alleged to be chafing under the economic nationalism of uptight wonks (of which VP-GMA was a stellar example). From the point of view of the LAKAS, the ability of the RP to move up the global economic foodchain was thwarted by the country's traditional neoliberalism. What was needed was political collaboration with the USA, if required, coupled with economic nationalism (which Washington would support in exchange for strategic cooperation).

Some believe the latter category of sectional/ideological interests was sufficiently powerful to orchestrate Estrada's ouster; certainly his cavalier attitude toward governance didn't impede matters. When GMA came to power as a result of EDSA II (outside of the RP, EDSA is usually called "People Power"; EDSA II, naturally, is called "People-Power 2" although the moniker is more dubious), the event was commemorated on the 200-peso bill.

GMA has been perhaps the most enthusiastically helpful president that Washington ever enjoyed in the RP. It consistently amazes me that she won a full term of office in the 2004 elections. She had, by then, probably violated the Philippine constitution by allowing US advisors into the theater of combat with insurgents in the south. In the RP, a society where personal empathy trumps ideology all the time, GMA was letting the old colonials come and show the elites how to kill other Pinoys. For this reason, the loathing of GMA is quite intense in many circles (e.g., the Daily Tribune). Likewise, her decision to send 51 humanitarian workers to Iraq.

Now she is dogged by a rather conventional sort of scandal: her husband accepted bribes from gambling interests (ABC-Australia), and everyone is deserting her politically. Much of her cabinet has resigned and even hermentor, Corazon Aquino, has advised her to step down (INQ7). If another EDSA pushes her out of office, observers can be excused for saying the problem has a simple solution: if you are the president, or the president's spouse, don't take bribes. Especially not if you came to power because your predecessor was sacked for doing so.

Unfortunately, this doesn't really work out so easily. GMA is probably very patriotic and clever; but she has a tin ear and an amazing lack of good judgment. Her fall seems reminiscent of Angelo's in Measure for Measure:

Make* not impossible
That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
In all his dressings, charact[er]s, titles, forms,
Be an archvillain; believe it, Royal Prince
[V.i.; *"make" = "declare"; "unlike" = surprising"]

AFTERTHOUGHT: For those of you wondering, the Vice President is Noli de Castro, an intellectually-challenged radio host. Unlike talk radio hosts in the USA, he is not described as a rightist, but rather, a social activist.