After the Con-Ass Debacle, the Elections
Having seen the
country's major political pillars festering under the hands of the elite –
the presidential office, Congress and the electoral system in particular –
the bourgeois election will serve as an opportunity for broadening the
masses' political consciousness about genuine people's governance and
establishing real democratic institutions.
By the Policy Study, Publication
and Advocacy (PSPA) Program
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
Posted by Bulatlat
After suffering an
ignominious defeat in a bid to perpetuate itself in power through the
Con-Ass express, will the Arroyo administration be able to recover for it
to make a credible showing in the May 2007 elections? In last week's
mayhem in Congress, the bullying tactics and dictatorship by numbers that
Arroyo's allies used to ram through their self-serving scheme smashed
head-on with the spontaneous mass outrage so powerful enough that it
forced Con-Ass to wobble and stop dead on its tracks.
The public image the
Con-Ass promoters created was that if this is the bunch of people who will
craft a new document so fundamental and sacred as a Constitution, then
where are they leading the country to?
Con-Ass was designed
to scuttle the May 2007 elections and allow administration allies in
Congress and in the local governments to stay in power. It was also
designed to thwart a possible third impeachment against Mrs. Arroyo.
Recall that charter change was hatched by former President Fidel V. Ramos
and De Venecia during last year's political crisis in order to save Arroyo
from being dislodged from power. Through trade-offs and under-the-table
deals, Mrs. Arroyo, Ramos, De Venecia and other architects of charter
change (or cha-cha) rallied the House votes that aborted the impeachment.
In turn, Arroyo was expected to lend her remaining influence and
government resources for cha-cha.
Now that Arroyo and
her close allies have sustained a major political wound, the
administration is hard-pressed to recover its losses and prepare for a
major battle – all in a span of five months. The May 2007 elections are a
make or break test for the President: If the anti-Gloria opposition
dominates the Senate race and garners more seats in the House, the
probability of a third impeachment will be high. That is, of course, if
the opposition would still agree with the party-list groups to make a
third try that would lead to the ouster of Mrs. Arroyo. Despite
overwhelming evidence, they were unable to muster enough votes in their
first two impeachment initiatives against the President - in 2005 and this
year - over charges of fraud in the 2004 elections, human rights
violations and other constitutional infringements.
Alliances
The political crisis
generated by the fraudulent May 2004 elections led to the polarization of
major political forces in the country arrayed against Arroyo. The
anti-Gloria opposition parties and groups, on the one hand, and the
cause-oriented movement, religious organizations and segments of the
middle class, on the other found common grounds to campaign for the
removal of the President. The fluid political situation gave birth to
plans to put up a transition government in place of the corrupt and widely
unpopular President and, even if that program fizzled out for various
reasons, its concept will endure. It will so endure as the country is
headed for more turbulent times and more intense intra-elite rivalry,
requiring a more organized and grassroots-based response to the crisis.
Mrs. Arroyo, in
collusion with the military clique and anti-communist hardliners in her
cabinet, imposed emergency rule that preceded other repressive decrees on
the pretext of preventing a military-Left plot to oust her early this
year. But these measures along with the escalation of political killings
perpetrated reportedly by government forces against Leftist activists and
leaders have failed to douse cold water to the simmering public rage. The
international backlash on the extra-judicial killings followed by the
unilateral cancellation by Mrs. Arroyo of the scheduled ASEAN Summit have
further eroded her credibility, as confirmed by recent surveys showing a
-13 popularity rating. The international condemnation of the
extra-judicial killings is significant considering that a number of
foreign governments are threatening to tie their economic assistance to
the President's human rights performance.
With the cha-cha
ending in a setback and the President's popularity rating falling, Mrs.
Arroyo's options for staying in power have narrowed down. One of her
political advisers' preoccupations now is damage control and preventing
the ruling coalition from crumbling once Arroyo's political allies
especially those running for reelection begin drifting toward the
anti-Gloria opposition camp in the tradition of political opportunism.
Right now, it is
probably to her advantage that the anti-Gloria opposition camp – part of
the country's political elite – remains in disarray, galvanized only by
the objective of removing the illegitimate President. If they aim to be
back in power, then they should begin talking about unity, forging a solid
coalition and reaching a consensus on who will be the next President in a
scenario where Mrs. Arroyo will be ousted in a third impeachment, in a
snap election or, who knows, in the 2010 elections. How to match the
administration's election machinery, which includes the use of government
resources, its control of the Comelec, the AFP and national police all of
which can be harnessed to commit yet again a monumental fraud, is an
obstacle that needs to be hurdled.
Meantime, the
organized masses can use the next electoral circus as a political process
toward ousting the President. Having seen the country's major political
pillars festering under the hands of the elite – the presidential office,
Congress and the electoral system in particular – the bourgeois election
will serve as an opportunity for broadening the masses' political
consciousness about genuine people's governance and establishing real
democratic institutions. Many unorganized elements from various social
classes and sectors who were politicized by the constitutional crisis
generated by the electoral fraud, the impeachment initiatives, and the
manipulative tactics of the traditional elite aligned with Arroyo can
likewise use the campaign period for deepening their political
consciousness and linking up with the progressive and patriotic forces.
It will be a good
time to articulate at the forefront the basic demands that cry out to be
addressed, including the termination of the lopsided Visiting Forces
Agreement (VFA) as well as the destructive mining law, a stop to political
killings and justice to the victims of the Arroyo regime's political
persecution, a stop to the ongoing demolitions in Metro Manila and
elsewhere, environmental degradation, and several other land and labor
issues. Posted by Bulatlat
*The Center for
People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) is a public policy center
established shortly before the May 2004 elections to help promote people
empowerment in governance specially the democratic representation of the
marginalized poor.
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