ANALYSIS
Charter Change
Causing Rift in Arroyo Camp
The appearance of
pictures of former President Fidel V. Ramos meeting with opposition
leaders Senate President Franklin Drilon, former Sen. Vicente Sotto III,
and former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. days after the New Year
sparked speculation about an emerging rift within the political camp
supporting the embattled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN
REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
The appearance of pictures of former
President Fidel V. Ramos meeting with opposition leaders Senate President
Franklin Drilon, former Sen. Vicente Sotto III, and former Vice President
Teofisto Guingona, Jr. days after the New Year sparked speculation about
an emerging rift within the political camp supporting the embattled
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Macapagal-Arroyo has been facing calls for
her ouster early on for her government’s imposition of what cause-oriented
groups describe as “anti-national and anti-people” policies. These calls
intensified in mid-2005 due to renewed allegations that she cheated her
way to victory in the 2004 presidential race.
Sotto is identified with the camp of
ousted President Joseph Estrada. Guingona, who served as vice president
from 2001 to 2004, had been critical of Macapagal-Arroyo particularly on
foreign policy, and supported the presidential bid of the late actor
Fernando Poe Jr.
Drilon was an ally of the president until
the eruption of the so-called “Hello, Garci” scandal, triggered by the
surfacing of tapes in which a woman with a voice similar to Macapagal-Arroyo’s
is heard instructing an election official – widely believed to be election
commissioner Virgilio Garcillano – to rig the polls. (Macapagal-Arroyo has
admitted talking to election officials during the counting period, while
Garcillano has admitted talking to the president during the same period.)
He called for Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation shortly after the scandal
broke out.
In contrast, Ramos came to Macapagal-Arroyo’s
defense when many of her erstwhile allies – including former President
Corazon Aquino and the group of resigned cabinet officials known as the
“Hyatt 10” – began issuing statements calling on her to make the “supreme
sacrifice” of stepping down.
The former president also revived his
proposal for constitutional amendments changing the form of government
from presidential to parliamentary. Under the scheme, Macapagal-Arroyo
would be staying on as a “transition president” until 2007 – when the
shift to parliamentary government is supposed to have been completed. That
would cut her term by three years.
Though he has denied any further political
ambitions after completing his term in 1998, Ramos is widely reported as
aspiring for the post of prime minister under an amended Constitution.
FVR and the no-election scenario
Ramos began meeting with opposition
personalities a few days after the Consultative Commission submitted to
Malacañang last Dec. 16 its proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution.
The commission also called for the
cancellation of elections scheduled in 2007, with the first election under
the new Constitution to be held on the second Monday of 2010. The plan
would extend the terms of elective officials to 2010. In effect, the
scheme saves Macapagal-Arroyo from the original Ramos proposal of cutting
her term.
Macapagal-Arroyo hailed the whole draft of
proposed amendments to the Constitution. “Today you have presented a
roadmap towards the fulfillment of our goals,” she said of the 51-man
Consultative Commission in a Dec. 16 statement. “I commend all the members
of the Consultative Commission for their patriotism, dedication, and
perseverance in crafting this framework of change.”
This apparently did not sit well with
Ramos, who days after that started meeting with opposition leaders.
Drilon, Guingona, and Sotto have all
declined to divulge to the public the details of their meetings with
Ramos. Sotto has been quoted in news reports as saying that their
conversation centered on “good French wine” while Drilon has kept
referring inquisitive reporters to Ramos, saying the matters they
discussed are “too sensitive” for him to comment on.
Ramos is reported to have also met with
other politicians close to Estrada, as well as with Aquino.
But the no-election scenario was already
public knowledge a few weeks before the Consultative Commission completed
its report.
At about the same time that news of the
no-election proposal came out, retired Army general and former defense
secretary Fortunato Abat declared “the existence of a revolutionary
transition government and the formation of a transition government council
to administer the affairs of government.” Ramos declared, at that time,
the no-election proposal as a “monumental blunder.”
The crack deepens
Macapagal-Arroyo has called for a meeting
of the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats party which she chairs, in
an effort to consolidate the party. Ramos has been invited to this meeting
as Lakas-CMD’s chairman emeritus.
Meanwhile, Lakas-CMD spokesperson Heherson
Alvarez has been quoted in the news as saying that there is an “emerging
consensus” among the party’s members to support the holding of elections
in 2007 but without cutting Macapagal-Arroyo’s term. Gabriel Claudio,
presidential adviser on political affairs, said Ramos had agreed to
Macapagal-Arroyo’s assertion that she would complete her term.
But Ramos has gone on record as insisting
that Macapagal-Arroyo step down in 2007.
Macapagal-Arroyo faced impeachment
complaints at the House of Representatives third quarter last year. The
administration camp was able to shoot these down with the numbers of
Macapagal-Arroyo’s political allies in the House.
But Macapagal-Arroyo and Ramos are equally
influential on the ruling political clique, and the brewing conflict
between them on the no-election issue is threatening to break up the
vessel of political support that proved very beneficial to the president
in the heat of last year’s political crisis.
If things proceed along their present
course, things could come to a head and the vessel that Macapagal-Arroyo
banked on would disintegrate. This would leave her vulnerable to the next
intensification of the crisis, which has momentarily subsided but is far
from resolved. Bulatlat
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