As the public clamor for resignation or ouster continues to grow and her regime becomes untenable, Arroyo is supposed to have two possible courses of action. One is to take a leave of absence and have the vice-president Noli de Castro perform the functions of the presidency. Another is for her to become the “caretaker president,” who will follow a script prepared by former president Fidel V. Ramos, House Speaker Jose de Venecia and some smart guys of Lakas-NUCD.
The script entrusts the “caretaker president” with the task of letting a “high commission” to go through the motion of investigating some corruption scandals, the two houses of Congress to become a constituent assembly that will make constitutional amendments for satisfying the U.S. and the local exploiting classes and for adopting a federal and parliamentary system and the parliamentary elections to take place in 2006.
However, the most that Arroyo can do is to gain a little more time on her political death bed. She has politically and morally suffered a fatal wound by being caught in the act of electoral fraud and stealing the GRP presidency. The tapes are the incontrovertible proof of her grave crime before the court of public opinion.
They expose the immorality and illegitimacy of Arroyo’s usurpation of power. They have already kindled the fire that is fuelled by the wide and deep-going social discontent of the people due to the crisis of the ruling system and that has the potential of burning down not only the political house of Arroyo but the entire ruling system of big compradors and landlords.
Since after the overthrow of Estrada in 2001, the institutions and stalwarts of the ruling system have considered the phenomena of mass uprisings repeatedly overthrowing a president as being very risky for the entire ruling system. They have been frightened by the expressed CPP view that the revolutionary forces and people strengthen themselves by overthrowing one ruling clique after another until they gain enough strength to overthrow the entire ruling system. In reaction, the apologists of the ruling system have invented the myth that the people are tired of mass uprisings.
But the ruling system has a problem in keeping a detested president long in power. The longer a president like Arroyo stays in power, the more rotten and despicable she makes the system to the increasingly exploited and oppressed people. And whoever is the president, so long as the rotten system persists, the people will detest it and have all the opportunity to strengthen themselves, irrespective of how long or short a president can stay in office.
The broad masses of the people demand that the basic roots of their oppression and exploitation are addressed. They wish to empower themselves against the U.S. and the local exploiting classes that torment and make them suffer. They wish to uphold national sovereignty, conserve the national patrimony, carry out land reform and national industrialization, promote a national, scientific and democratic culture and adopt an independent foreign policy for world peace and development.
The crisis of the ruling system has become so grave that the ruling classes can no longer rule in the old way. The people want a revolutionary change of government, in which the toiling masses of workers and peasants obtain and exercise their due share of political power. There are revolutionary forces that can lead the people in the revolutionary process.
Social degradation and political turmoil will continue so long as the ruling system of big compradors and landlords persists. The victory of the broad united front against the Arroyo regime should lead to the formation of a transition council and a government that accommodate the patriotic and progressive forces of the legal democratic movement and pave the way for the success of peace negotiations with the revolutionary forces and people represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Posted by Bulatlat
