Commentary

U.S. Imperialism and the 2004 Elections

The continuing Namfrel policy of trending without clearly attributing the local sources of the national count is highly dubious and suspect. Do we see here a pattern of Namfrel intervening to influence either the election's outcome or the public perception of it, this time not to unseat the incumbent presidents as in Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos, but to install the incumbent Arroyo even on the wings of fraud?

By Ricco Alejandro M. Santos
Bulatlat.com

First, Manny Pacquiao, then the 2004 Philippine elections.  First, the grand fraud that rigged the judges' scoring against boxing hero Pacquiao. All in the name of Las Vegas gambling syndicate profits, at the expense of fair play in sports and Filipino pride.  And then, another and even more colossal fraud and conspiracy, this time against the electoral will of the people, and in the interest of U.S. imperialist stability and Arroyo's fanatical drive for the presidency at all costs.  At stake here is the legitimacy and credibility of elections as a showcase of Philippine "democracy".

To understand why this election has turned out to be the dirtiest in Philippine history, one has to identify its major players.

The first and foremost player in Philippine politics is U.S. imperialism, or big business.  At its core is Wall Street, the financial megacorporations that are at the heart and nerve center of U.S. industry and trade.  At one of its two flanks is its overt governmental arm, the U.S. State Department of the Bush administration, represented locally by the U.S. embassy.   On the other side is the covert operational arm of the U.S. imperial network, the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mainly through unequal trade, U.S. big business enjoys the bulk of profits from the Philippine status quo of underdevelopment--as pointed out in the book Crime of Empire, over two thirds of the true value or income created in the Philippines.  For this reason, their special interest in Philippine governmental affairs is maintaining a Philippine president highly protective of its business interests and greatly compliant to its dictates.  This it has found during the past three years in the person of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  U.S. big business and imperialism's hold on Arroyo is promising to support her election in every way possible in exchange for complete, robotic endorsement of every single U.S. policy dictate in the country, from all-out support to the Bush regime's invasion-occupation of Iraq to Asia's most rapid and rabid trade liberalization.

U.S. all set to replace Arroyo

Before the entry of Fernando Poe, Jr, in the electoral contest, U.S. imperialism was ready to replace Arroyo with either Roco or Lacson, since both subscribed to the same conservative policies carried out by Arroyo.   At that point, it was more interested in trying to ensure credible elections than choosing their bet since any of the three would have adequately fit the bill of aspiring puppet.

With Poe, however, it has encountered someone too unpredictable for comfort.  Through their academic allies such as Bernardo Villegas, U.S. big business has sought to reprogram and repackage Poe as another aspiring conservative politician.  However, Poe's uncommunicative personality makes him too big a question mark to classify him as a future reliable and predictable puppet in the mold of Arroyo.

Hence, toward the end of the campaign, U.S. imperialism had four thrusts. One, to endorse Arroyo indirectly. Two, to discredit Poe.  Three, to condition the public that Arroyo is the runaway winner. Four, to allow the Commission on Elections to mess up the voters' list and lay the grounds for massive disenfranchisement and fraud.

Prior to the election, two pillars of Wall Street, Citicorp and the International Monetary Fund both came out with high-profile media statements favoring continuity of government, that is, Arroyo's election.  The message loud and clear was that an Arroyo win was good for U.S. business in the country, whereas a Poe presidency would be sheer disaster for the Philippine economy.  Since Wall Street controls the local stock market, it managed to cause stocks to rise or fall to favor media projection of Arroyo and to devalue Poe in the public eye.

Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia, poll organizations closely tied to big business interests through subscriptions, began to produce surveys with Arroyo now gaining the lead.

Electoral watchdog

Early on, the Washington political establishment sent signals that it would foist on the country's politics a high-profile and high-impact electoral watchdog in the Philippines by promising to send Sen. Richard Lugar and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a Washington lobby group and thinktank, supposedly to ensure clean elections.  Then suddenly, Lugar's visit was cancelled.  The NDI was nowhere to be found actively involved in helping clean up the voters' list messed up by the Comelec.  It did nothing to warn Arroyo about wanton overspending, which set the tone for eventual massive direct vote-buying.

The National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) is an organization with historical roots directly linked to U.S. imperialism. According to Washington journalist Raymond Bonner in his book, Waltzing with a Dictator,

Another American, a New York lawyer and unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress, Gabriel Kaplan, was recruited by the agency [the CIA] and sent to Manila with instructions "to help Landsdale [CIA officer Ed Landsdale] elect Magsaysay".  Kaplan's cover was the Committee for Free Asia, which later became the Asian Foundation.  Working with various community organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary and veterans' groups, Kaplan, with funds from the agency, set up a nationwide organization called NAMFREL, the National Movement for Free Elections¾the same organization that was resuscitated after a decade of martial law and played a critical role in the 1986 election. 

In short, Namfrel was a creation of the CIA to shape the elections according to Washington's Cold War master plan in the Philippines. Its actions therefore bear watching in this historical context.

Shortly before the elections, Namfrel warned about the state of the voters' lists and the threat of massive fraud as a result of this.

But came the election.  With indecent haste and without a review of the election reports of fraud and violence, an observer identified with the U.S. goverment rated the election as "clean" and "peaceful".  This was quickly seconded by Malacañang.  Recently Namfrel joined the chorus, claiming that there was no proof of massive fraud. This string of premature and defensive denials indicates no less than a pattern of systematic manipulation of public opinion to a priori whitewash the election and downplay the reports of election fraud.

The continuing Namfrel policy of trending without clearly attributing the local sources of the national count is highly dubious and suspect. 

Namfrel intervention

Do we see here a pattern of Namfrel intervening to influence either the election's outcome or the public perception of it, this time not to unseat the incumbent presidents as in Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos, but to install the incumbent Arroyo even on the wings of fraud?

Through the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG), the U.S. Department of Defense can easily influence the behavior of the Philippine military and active generals before, during and after elections.  But, the fact that retired generals are reported to have been making the rounds of military camps to persuade AFP officers and soldiers from joining the fraud shows that the Pentagon did nothing to discourage¾and in that manner, gave silent consent to  ¾the massive conspiracy of cheating reported by 18 junior AFP officers to Filipino bishops.

Apparently, U.S. imperialism abandoned its earlier mission to try to keep the elections clean and instead gave the Arroyo clique the go-signal to go ahead with massive electoral fraud, since this looked as the only way Arroyo could make sure that she would win.  After all, the Bush regime itself is tainted with a history of electoral fraud of its own in Florida that enabled it to win power.  It is not morally obliged, inclined or qualified to lecture or mentor the Arroyo regime on electoral cleanliness.  By seeking to retain Arroyo even in the dirtiest manner, U.S. imperialism is desperate in its bid to preserve the Philippine status quo of underdevelopment.   But it also increasingly opened itself to the risk that the Filipino people will sooner or later need to hold it principally accountable for the country's worst election debacle in history and for the country's worst electoral fraud in history that is the Arroyo presidency. Bulatlat.com

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