COMMENTARY
Putsch
Mortem
On the eve of the march to Malacanang, it was clear that the pro-Estrada forces lacked the strength to overthrow the Arroyo government. Yet the instigators still went through with the march and the siege. There was no point to all these, and the violence that ensued, other than sheer destabilization.
BY SANDRA NICOLAS
The sound and the fury filling the streets surrounding Malacanang from early in the morning of May 1 signified, as Shakespeare said of a tale told by an idiot, nothing.
There was a desperate grab at power, certainly, by a band of idiots — the opposition political and military personalities identified with the ousted, disgraced and now detained former president Joseph Estrada. But it was a stillborn putsch at best, nipped in the bud by its sheer idiocy.
Even as the crowd at Edsa had swelled to the hundreds of thousands, it was clear that the overthrow of the Arroyo administration and the return of Estrada to power was a most unlikely scenario. At least three things were needed for a coup attempt to be successful: 1) political and moral justification; 2) significant military and police support, tacitly or otherwise; and 3) the nod, again tacitly or otherwise, of the United States (US). None of these were present.
Estrada Exposed
Agitated as the huge crowd at Edsa was, the only real common ground they had for being there — the criminal Estrada — was a shaky political or moral justification.
Estrada was overthrown barely a hundred days ago by a nationwide people’s uprising for his numerous criminal acts and utter disdain for the very masses he demagogically appeals to for support. The evidence against him and his criminal clique was enough for a verdict to be made: guilty.
Yet gathered at Edsa was a motley mob composed of both rent-a-crowd lumpens and genuine sympathizers manipulated by ambitious opposition leaders. The Babel of calls was evidence enough of how the basis for political action — despite being couched in the rhetoric of liberal democracy — could go no further than Estrada himself.
To arrest Estrada but treat him with respect. Not to arrest him because he is innocent. To arrest him but only after first holding former presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Fidel Ramos accountable for their crimes. Not to arrest him because to do so violates due process. To arrest him but not to place him in a cell (or even an air-conditioned bungalow) but rather under house arrest in his luxurious Polk Street residence. To return him to power.
Estrada himself, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo claims, had his own idea: He would end his “leave” and retake the presidency from “acting president” Arroyo.
The ringleaders of the putsch certainly geared the pro-Estrada forces for political battle: the opposition party Puwersa ng Masa (PnM) and its big business and criminal financiers; pro-Estrada local government officials and candidates; the People’s Movement Against Poverty (PMAP); and party-list groups allied with PnM like Kammpil, Aasahan, Jeep, PRP, PMP and Bagong Bayani.
But the pro-Estrada forces would begin and end there, for the likelihood of a snowballing of support beyond their ranks was virtually impossible. And they would be going up against the massive broad united front of the Left, the Middle and the anti-Estrada Right — including, it is often downplayed, the millions from the basic sectors — that remained determined to uphold the people’s verdict.
This is notwithstanding the demagogic and hypocritical exploitation by Estrada and his cohorts of the people’s justifiable frustration with an oppressive ruling system.
Disarmed Uprising
In the days before the siege of Malacanang, rumors were rife of widespread military and police defections.
According to the rumors, the coup plotters had the solid support of: the Guardians Brotherhood Foundation Inc. (loyal to PnM senatorial reelectionists and veteran coup instigators Gregorio Honasan and Juan Ponce Enrile); 500 Philippine National Police members as well as the Kuratong Baleleng and Solido Gangs (loyal to PnM senatorial candidate and former PNP boss Panfilo Lacson); vast private armies of pro-Estrada politicians.
On top of this, the rumor mill said that the plotters had been able to convince scores of active-duty military and police officers or otherwise bought them off with hundreds of millions of pesos. Many more officers and soldiers were just waiting for a critical mass of pro-Estrada forces at Edsa shrine before they too would defect.
The talk was alarming, as rumors often are. They were also false, as rumors, too, often are. This was not for want of trying because the plotters did approach many officers. But the widespread military and police discontent necessary to sway them was simply not there yet. And this is not simply because the barely hundred-day old Arroyo administration still has a fresh mandate.
Arroyo has, from the start of her presidency, gone out of her way to please the military. Prime civilian posts were given to military officials. She attended scores of military-related engagements and visited military camps and wounded soldiers. She announced subsidized food, tax breaks and livelihood support for soldiers. On so many occasions, she poured overly lavish praise on the military and police for their role in People Power 2.
Also significantly, the military and police chain of command could see that there was no overwhelming anti-Arroyo sentiment among the people, as had been the case with Estrada.
The international diplomatic community was mainly silent during the farcical “Edsa 3” and even during the violence at Malacanang. Silent, that is, except for the striking statement on May 1 by the US embassy of its recognition of and support for the Arroyo administration. The timing of the statement was as meaningful as the statement itself was uncalled for, considering that any threat to the Arroyo government had by then receded.
With a simple well-timed statement of support, the important political and economic weight of the world’s sole remaining superpower was unambiguously thrown against any putschist adventurism.
All of this means that any sort of armed uprising would have been futile.
Decisive Action
The resulting violence at the gates of Malacanang was then senseless. The coup plotters could by no means have reasonably thought that the Arroyo government could have been overthrown. All that the march could have resulted in was to destabilize the political situation further.
The dramatic street-fighting, burning and looting around Malacanang apparently justified Arroyo’s declaration of a “state of rebellion” in the capital — perhaps more than if equivalent fighting had happened farther from the seat of Philippine political power.
The administration failed to stem the estimated 20,000 marchers from Edsa shrine despite having advance notice (various speakers and Estrada himself had publicly warned of such a march) and over two battalions of military and police forces as well as scores of tanks, armored cars, fire trucks and other vehicles at their disposal.
Although contending legal views abound, the declaration was used as the basis for ordering the immediate and warrantless arrests of at least 11 suspected ringleaders, including three reelectionist opposition senators, the former PNP chief, the former ambassador to the US and a number of active police and military generals and PMAP leaders.
Arroyo, apparently, has started to act decisively and turned the situation to her advantage. The supposed ringleaders have been detained or otherwise reduced to being fugitives. At the very least, the opposition’s electoral campaign has been severely crippled in the crucial homestretch to the elections.
Arroyo has visited Estrada in his prison bungalow. The talk now is that Estrada could not have been one of the instigators, for was he not himself meant to be assassinated to pave the way for a civilian-military junta with another person at its head? Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, another supposed ringleader, remains at large and continues to entertain.
In any case, the immediate tumult is over though some very pressing tasks remain. The punishment of the ringleaders and all their accomplices. The dismantling of Estrada’s political and economic power base. Carrying Estrada’s historic arrest to its logical conclusion.
And, most importantly, the Arroyo administration needs to undertake the basic social and economic reforms that will lay the basis for true political and economic stability in the country. Only in this way will the poverty and roots of crisis in the country be decisively dealt with.