Reconciliation for Election

President Macapagal-Arroyo’s reconciliation policy is not a reconciliation that would forge peace in the Philippines as she and her spokespersons claim. It is a “reconciliation” that is driven by her desire to win in the May presidential elections – three years after People Power II brought her to Malacañang.

By Alexander Martin Remollino 
Bulatlat.com

The decision by the Sandiganbayan (anti-graft court) last Dec. 23 to grant deposed President Joseph Estrada’s long-standing request to be allowed to travel abroad for knee replacement surgery has expectedly created quite a storm.

In the first place, the Sandiganbayan decision was to be expected. As early as last November, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had announced that she was inclined to support Estrada’s request to be allowed to seek “medical treatment” in the United States.

Estrada, who was ousted in 2001 by a people-power revolt that broke out largely because of the corruption scandals that surrounded his administration, is currently facing trial before the Sandiganbayan for plunder — a heinous and non-bailable offense. The militant groups that figured in the January 2001 uprising have opposed Estrada’s travel abroad even for “medical reasons,” seeing that the ousted president could use it as an excuse to flee the hand of justice.

Indeed, the Marcoses, who were booted out of Malacańang in 1986 also through a people-power uprising that was largely against cronyism, corruption and fascism, were able to escape from justice by going into exile in Hawaii. The Marcos children have since been back in power and their cases, but for rambling court trials, have all but been forgotten.

Against claims by the Estrada camp that his knee ailment needs medical attention that only U.S. physicians could provide, physicians’ groups at home have told the Sandiganbayan that there are orthopedic surgeons in the Philippines who can treat Estrada’s ailment — a testimony corroborated by one of the witnesses of the defense panel.

Ominously, by his recent statements Estrada seems to be conditioning the public mind that he will not be coming back once he leaves the country. In a news report last Dec. 26, ABS-CBN quoted Estrada as saying that once he is out of the country, the government might not allow him to return. After spending some time in the United States supposedly under medical treatment, Estrada can issue a statement that much as he would like to return to the country to face trial, the government would not let him do so.

Treachery

Militant groups have condemned the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s granting of Estrada’s request to be allowed to travel abroad. “This is yet another proof of Arroyo’s treachery to the cause and ideals of People Power 2,” said Fr. Joe Dizon, spokesperson of Plunder Watch which filed the plunder case against the deposed president, in a statement to the media last week. “She has again abetted corruption by allowing Estrada to flee from justice.”

Fr. Dizon is one of the signatories to the impeachment case filed against Estrada in 2000. The impeachment trial was aborted through a maneuver by senator-judges partial to Estrada on Jan. 16, 2001, leading to the People Power 2 revolt that ousted him four days later.

Fr. Dizon also took issue with the government’s justification of the decision as a “Christian” act, saying: “There is nothing Christian about allowing a plunderer to go abroad and evade a quick, fair and open trial. If he really wants to be healed of his ailments, he could have accepted the advice of Filipino doctors to seek treatment locally.”

In a related statement issued also last week, Carmen Deunida, chairperson of the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) said that Macapagal-Arroyo “is the biggest beneficiary of this legal hocus-pocus—shoring up propaganda points for a sham act of reconciliation while jockeying for the votes of Estrada supporters for her electoral ambitions.”

Secret deal

The Public Interest Law Center (PILC), whose lawyers are involved in the plunder case, had suspected that a deal was being made between the Macapagal-Arroyo government and the Estrada camp as early as last Nov. 19. In a statement issued that day, the PILC said: “If Estrada is let loose, violating all known rules of criminal procedure, we will walk out of the plunder trial and expose it as a farce.”

Under Philippine criminal laws, it is the court that determines the particulars of medical treatment for a suspected criminal facing trial, unlike in the case of Estrada who was given free rein to tell the court who his doctor would be. “Because if Estrada is let loose and allowed to go abroad or on house arrest,” the PILC statement further read, “then a deal had been made. Our institutions blown to dust, plunderers walk free and their heirs rise to power.”

The PILC suspicion appears to be not without basis. The Sandiganbayan decision, as the PILC argues, was a violation of rules on criminal procedure. Moreover, that Estrada could get more than satisfactory treatment for his knee ailment in the Philippines had been established before the same court.

If there was indeed a secret deal, it may benefit Macapagal-Arroyo in several possible ways. Estrada appears to still have considerable influence over a sizeable portion of the voting population. Macapagal-Arroyo, who is running for the presidency in May, by granting concessions to the ousted president, can attract a good number of votes from his supporters, who comprise a critical factor in the May elections.

Reconciliation policy

The government’s decision on the issue of Estrada’s medical treatment reflects the program of “total reconciliation” which the chief executive introduced at the 22nd National Prayer Breakfast in Manila last Nov. 12. In that prayer breakfast, Macapagal-Arroyo said that she wanted to forge reconciliation, by 2004 and “beyond,” with the Marcoses, Estrada, businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, military rebels, and members of the mainstream political opposition.

Macapagal-Arroyo introduced her program of “total reconciliation” in the wake of the impeachment trial against Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr., initiated by Cojuangco’s Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) ostensibly because of the top magistrate’s mishandling of the Judiciary Development Fund, which is used to finance the operations of Philippine courts.

In the case of Cojuangco, Macapagal-Arroyo’s “reconciliation” with him was in the offing long before the NPC-initiated impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Davide. In December 2001, just two days after the SC ruled that the coconut levy funds — which Cojuangco used to purchase the majority shares of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) as he himself admitted before the Sandiganbayan — are “prima facie public funds,” Macapagal-Arroyo allowed him to remain as SMC chair. A month later she allowed the Malaysian firm Kirin to buy 20 percent of Cojuangco’s SMC shares and vote with him in the beer and beverage conglomerate’s board of directors as a single bloc.

In July last year the Sandiganbayan ruled that Cojuangco’s SMC shares were illegally acquired. Two months later it reversed its own ruling and even lifted a sequestration order issued in 1986 on the said shares—on technical grounds that were non-existent at the time it was issued. Late in 2001 the “civil-society group” People’s Consultative Assembly, which participated in the People Power 2 revolt, exposed a secret meeting between Macapagal-Arroyo and Cojuangco in which the president supposedly asked for a P20-billion commission from the P130-billion coco levy funds as a “contribution” to her campaign funds, in exchange for concessions for the businessman.

This allegation was corroborated last November by the Kilusang Mayo Uno-affiliated Ilaw at Buklod ng Manggagawa (IBM-KMU), the union of SMC workers, in the heat of the Davide impeachment scandal. The Davide impeachment, in fact, was exposed by the IBM-KMU as a ploy by Cojuangco to secure his gains on the coco levy case. Davide was already the chief justice when the SC ruled that the coco levy funds are “prima facie public funds.”

With Davide out, Justice Reynato Puno would assume the top SC post; SMC workers say he has a son who is a vice-president in the said company, and aside from this he was one of the justices who ruled in favor of Cojuangco on the coco levy case.

New reconciliation

Macapagal-Arroyo and Cojuangco have since taken a new reconciliation track. Last month, 25 congressmen and 13 governors from NPC coalesced with Macapagal-Arroyo’s Lakas-Christian/Muslim Democrats, which could be read — in the very words of Cojuangco’s son Charlie, a Negros Occidental congressman — as a “sign of support” by the Cojuangcos for the incumbent president in the May elections.

It was also last month that President Macapagal-Arroyo announced that she is “striving to find a sound legal basis” for reconciliation. In line with this is the president’s proposed amnesty grant to rebel groups as well as individuals and other groups that have figured in political conflicts, entitled “The National Healing and Reconciliation Act of 2003.” According to Macapagal-Arroyo, it would be up to Congress to determine whether the Marcoses and the Estradas would be included in the amnesty grant, meaning that if Congress indeed included them the bill would still pass.

But the biggest item under Macapagal-Arroyo’s program of “total reconciliation” would be her decision to have Sen. Noli de Castro as her running mate for the May elections. De Castro, a known Estrada supporter who packaged himself as an independent candidate in the 2001 senatorial elections, also works as a news reader for ABS-CBN, a broadcasting company owned by the Lopez family. The Lopezes own one of the country’s biggest business empires. ABS-CBN is the most widely-patronized broadcasting company in the Philippines. By taking Senator De Castro into her slate, Macapagal-Arroyo gets into the good graces of the Lopezes, who have much to provide her in terms of financial support and media mileage.

It is noticeable that other presidential aspirants — Sen. Panfilo Lacson, former Education Secretary Raul Roco, and actor Fernando Poe, Jr. — have been getting less and less exposure on ABS-CBN since Macapagal-Arroyo announced that she had chosen De Castro to be her running mate.

For the elections Macapagal-Arroyo’s reconciliation policy is not a reconciliation that would forge peace in the Philippines as she and her spokespersons claim. It is a “reconciliation” that is motivated by her desire to win in the May presidential elections – three years after People Power II brought her to Malacañang. Bulatlat.com

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