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Analysis:
Signs of the Times Under GMA

Estrada may have stolen billions of pesos, but his crime as alleged is paltry compared to the ratification of GATT. You walk down some of Metro Manila’s main streets and industrial districts and you see rows of buildings and factories abandoned. You see hordes of prospective job applicants, including seafarers on T.M. Kalaw, and you see hopelessness written all over. Travel to the remote rural countryside and you see barren landscapes devoid of life.

BY BOBBY TUAZON
Bulatlat.com

Similar events that formed the backdrop leading to the eventual ouster of Joseph Estrada from the presidency are coming forth today.

In the year 2000, then President Estrada had to contend with a growing unrest arising from a series of oil price hikes, wage freezes, demolitions in urban poor communities, mass-layoffs in government following privatization takeovers and an upsurge in the Moro independence movement. Graft scandals, high-level kidnappings and bombings that linked presidential relatives, administration and police officials were brought into a climax through the impeachment of Estrada himself for corruption, bribery and plunder charges. Then it was only a matter of weeks before a constitutional crisis would be averted by a mass uprising that toppled the president.

The plight of the country’s proletariat and peasantry continues to worsen by the day because of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s refusal to heed popular demands for a decent wage and to address the centuries-old issue of landlessness and exploitation in the rural countryside. The transition president’s anti-labor and anti-peasant policies continue to brutalize the country’s poor even as she openly sides with the predications of capitalist employers and big landlords and compradors like Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco.

Contrary to the president’s post-Edsa Dos pledge of moratorium, there has been no let-up in urban poor demolitions; her visitations in Payatas and other slum areas are contrived mainly to win over forces claimed by Estrada and for pre-election gimmickry.

The sluggish economy has taken its toll most severely on the country’s average breadwinners who continue to brace themselves with rising unemployment while small producers and retailers are being marginalized by import liberalization and other GATT impositions. The Macapagal-Arroyo administration is banking on the recovery of the American economy – which has suffered recession since third quarter last year – but no signs are evident that this will happen. The dire predictions are that the United States is up for a “double-dip recession” – after a brief respite, another period of declining output.

Outrage

Outrage is also unmistakable among many Filipinos - especially those who lent their voices in the oust-Estrada campaign – to see the gains of Edsa Dos fall down the drain not only because of the refusal of government to pursue the plunder cases against the former president decisively but also for the bent to dispense with the case through some reconciliation. What is more atrocious, however, is that all the crimes and corruption that proved to be Estrada’s undoing – and which galvanized a people to exercise their sovereign right to put an end to a discredited presidency - are back with a vengeance.

Nothing is new. Last year, the president’s own husband was reportedly involved in graft allegations. Macapagal-Arroyo and her finance secretary, among others, have been linked to the billion-peso PEACEBonds scam. Transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez has also been accused with favoring a group of developers in the multibillion-peso NAIA II airport terminal extension project.

Among high officials, however, Macapagal-Arroyo stands out as the chief architect of the law – ratification of the General Agreement and Tariff and Trade (GATT) – which sold the country’s economic future to multinationals under a regime of globalization. Because of GATT, millions of the country’s small producers and retailers have lost their incomes and hundreds of thousands of employees are now out of job.

More economic destruction is expected to ensue as oil giants begin a frenzy of oil price hikes even as household consumers have yet to find relief from recent increases in both water and electricity rates. The increases have been overflowing over the years of the effectivity of the oil and power industry deregulation of which, again, Macapagal-Arroyo was also instrumental.

So dependent, however, has Macapagal-Arroyo been on U.S. economic assistance and support for her presidential bid in 2004 that she’s willing to trade what is left of the country’s political sovereignty in exchange for a few millions of dollars of aid and some preferential treatment for textile exports. The plan to restore the U.S. basing privileges and forward deployment of security forces in support of the United States’ renewed war of aggression both in the Philippines and the rest of Asia will fuel further unrest in the country. It will be an act of political and military suicide, however, if the U.S. forces decide to intervene directly in counter-insurgency operations. The more U.S. forces and war materiel are deployed and the deeper they become involved in a war of aggression, the more destruction and human rights atrocities they will cause. They will have to face a renewed sense of patriotism among a growing number of Filipinos.

Abuse of Presidential Authority

Macapagal-Arroyo has abused presidential authority by blindly committing the country to Bush’s “global war against terrorism” of all shades – most especially Marxist rebellions in the region. At this level, she has allowed the military to take the upperhand in dictating government’s security policies over a wide range of issues including closer cooperation with the United States in the fight against the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Pro-U.S. military hand was behind last week’s Malacañang announcement suspending peace talks with the two revolutionary groups, asking them to just lay down their arms. And this is precisely what concerned quarters said is the script that would justify the escalation of counter-revolutionary campaigns with U.S. military assistance.

The military hand will become more visible as the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency is besieged anew by so-called destabilization moves including a plot by pro-Estrada forces to commemorate last year’s May 1 siege on Malacañang with a similar attempt at a political takeover. But at least two senators – Joker Arroyo and Serge Osmeña – have fingered government’s own military establishment as behind the sinister move to sow terror in Metro Manila and Mindanao through bomb insertions. Likewise, militant groups have accused the president’s own men of planting the bombs and blaming these on “terrorist elements” (Read: leftist and Muslim armed rebels) to justify U.S. armed intervention in the country.

It appears that Macapagal-Arroyo is becoming more hawkish than her predecessors including possibly, Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos, incidentally, succeeded in guaranteeing continued U.S. economic and military support through a long period of authoritarian rule which in turn maintained a semblance of stability. In his time, the U.S. government propped up dictatorships and militarist regimes throughout the world as it undertook wars of aggression and military expansionism on the pretext of checking Soviet hegemonism and the Chinese communist menace. But under the present presidency, U.S. military intervention has become more brazen and shameless and, unlike in the past, operate nationwide.

Today, as U.S. forces dig in an indefinite period the requirement for a level of stability – or, at least, a secure pro-U.S. regime ala Marcos - will also intensify. In the end, the U.S. government will be counting on a local presidency that would help secure America’s military expansionism not only in the Philippines but throughout the region as well. The Philippine government, through Macapagal-Arroyo, is being asked again to support, in the guise of “couter-terrorism,” renewed U.S. military expansionism in the region – the same machinery which will help secure America’s geopolitical interests and economic hegemony in Asia-Pacific.

By all accounts, Macapagal-Arroyo is about to conform to similar expectations by the United States. After all, she has, since January 2001, been relying on the support of the Armed Forces and its U.S. master to consolidate her power.

It is a big question, however, whether despite increased U.S. economic assistance Macapagal-Arroyo will be able to diffuse the growing dissatisfaction to her government and the threats that continue to hound her from other ultra-rightists, the reactionary opposition and militarist elements in her own government. Otherwise, the U.S. government can always count on some Filipino generals to perform such a role. To wait for the 2004 presidential election may even be out of the question. Bulatlat.com

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