POLITICS
The Smoke of Battle Refuses to Vanish
(First of two parts)

The 2004 election is probably one of the most hotly contested in recent history. But after all was said and done at the polling precincts, the gun smoke refuses to vanish. An activist solon has predicted that if things proceed in their present manner, the president will not be able to finish her term.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

Photo by Alexander Remollino

The May 10 election was quite a battle, to say the least. But after all was said and done at the polling precincts, the gun smoke refuses to vanish.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who became president on the heels of a popular uprising in January 2001, ran for election in May 2004 and won. But hers was a Pyrrhic victory: the year is a few inches away from its end and still her victory is bitterly contested.

Many Filipinos thought that the election itself was incredible from the beginning. Shortly before the campaign period, Arroyo courted controversy by appointing two new Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioners. One of them, Virgilio Garcillano, is accused of complicity in the vote-padding and vote-shaving operations against Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. in the 1995 senatorial election. The other, Manuel Barcelona, was reported to have contributed to Arroyo’s campaign funds.

The election itself was reportedly fraught with anomalies in the counting and canvassing of votes – particularly in the discrepancies between election returns and certificates of canvass and in the evident tampering of election documents. Arroyo’s votes were reportedly padded by at least a million.

Patriots, a Church-initiated but broad-based poll watchdog, documented 87 irregularities in the canvassing of votes alone. It likewise documented several incidents of fraud: 26 cases of electioneering, 75 cases of vote-buying, and 27 cases of ballot box-snatching/ballot-switching. Meanwhile, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) reported that three million voters were disenfranchised in the elections.

The irregularities in the canvassing of votes were seen to have benefited Arroyo, as well as other politicians and “party-list” groups closely associated with her or supportive of her administration.

Arroyo was also accused of using some P15 billion in government funds to finance her electoral bid – an act prohibited by election laws. Newspaper reports based on interviews with insiders said that government offices had experienced massive fund withdrawals weeks before the election.

Electoral protests were filed by several candidates, among them Macapagal-Arroyo’s closest opponent, Fernando Poe, Jr.

Beyond the polls

Poe died Dec.14 after a massive stroke, and his running mate, broadcaster and former Sen. Loren Legarda, is expected to pursue the case in his behalf before the Supreme Court.

Poe’s admirers and supporters are enraged that he died before hearings on his electoral protest could even begin. They see him as a victim of injustice on whom time ran out before justice could be done to him, and begrudge the incumbent president for allegedly cheating him of victory.

But this outpour of mass anger is just the latest manifestation of a public discontent that began to heat up earlier this year.

The circumstances that attended Macapagal-Arroyo’s victory – including the fact that her proclamation took place at the most ungodly hours of June 24 – were not at all lost to the public. That a president with a record of pursuing policies that have been repeatedly criticized as anti-people should win unconvincingly fueled more public indignation, especially when the prices of petroleum products, basic commodities, and utilities like water and power began to rise right after the election.

Macapagal-Arroyo’s electoral ecstasy would thus fizzle out within two months with the dip in her approval rating as reflected in surveys by IBON Foundation, Pulse Asia, and the Social Weather Station (SWS). Such quick loss of popularity for a new president is unprecedented.

Public discontent showed itself in the sustained protests that rocked the country when truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was held hostage in Iraq. Resistance fighters threatened to behead him if Filipino troops sent there as part of the U.S.-led international “peace-keeping” forces were not pulled out immediately. Such was the vehemence of the protest actions that they threatened to erupt into another people-power uprising, and Arroyo – by far the staunchest supporter of the U.S.-led war on “terror” in Asia – blinked. The Filipino troops were sent back home.

Arroyo’s other major brushes with public opinion took place in the midst of a fiscal crisis and large-scale corruption scandals involving Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Winston Garcia and retired AFP comptroller Gen. Carlos Garcia.

Corruption

Even before the big AFP scam involving Garcia was exposed, former AFP chief and defense secretary Angelo Reyes found himself in the congressional hot seat over allegations of graft. This was soon buried by the Garcia scandal.

However, there are fears among military reformers and lawyers handling military cases that the issues raised in the Garcia case will be swept under the rug through the court-martial proceedings against the former AFP comptroller. Speculations were that the Garcia case would open a Pandora’s box that would link some bigger fish.

Then there was the corruption scandal involving GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia.

The issue of malversation of public funds had been raised against Garcia as early as May 2003, when the GSIS stopped processing its members’ applications for loans and benefits, supposedly because government offices were not remitting their employees’ contributions. Critics called attention to Garcia’s supposed role in overpriced GSIS projects.

But the issue came to the fore when government employees – including those of the GSIS – took to the streets demanding the beleaguered GSIS chief’s ouster and a massive clean-up at the agency. Malacañang ignored the pleas thus bolstering allegations that Garcia was untouchable for his supposed role in delivering for Arroyo the Cebu “swing vote” that elected her for a fresh term.

Corruption was also an issue linked to the fiscal crisis. The National Tax Research Center (NRTC) revealed that 20 percent of the country’s annual budget is lost corruption, thus contributing to the fiscal crisis. The NRTC’s finding is bigger than that of the UN Development Program which placed the percentage of the country’s national budget lost yearly to corruption at 13.

As in 2003, the Philippines scored high in Transparency International (TI)’s list of most corrupt countries – rating 2.6 in a scale of 10 (squeaky clean) to 1 (highly corrupt).

Instability and U.S. support 

The deterioration in the living conditions of the people – as shown in the SWS third-quarter survey revealing that 15 percent of Filipinos spent at least a day with nothing to eat during the said period – juxtaposed with corruption scandal here and economic mismanagement there – has made for a very volatile political scene. Arroyo’s claimed economic expertise seems to be not making the country in a better shape.

Still, Arroyo enjoys support from the U.S. This is manifest in the Philippines’ being chosen recently as chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)’s Counterterrorism Task Force.

Despite the withdrawal of Filipino troops from Iraq which angered the U.S. government, no less than President George Bush still considers Arroyo an important asset.

Arroyo is among the very first leaders in Asia to support the U.S.-led war on “terror.” She has been a staunch proponent of globalization from her days as a senator (1992-98); in fact, it was she who was responsible for the Philippines’ entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

Prospects

So what are the prospects for the political scene after 2004? Where does the country go from 2004?

Jose Maria Sison, chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, had predicted early this year that Macapagal-Arroyo would not last her term.

Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo says that Macapagal-Arroyo may be removed from office if the political and economic conditions in the country continue to deteriorate.

“The key is the management of the economy,” Ocampo said in an interview with Bulatlat. If the prices of oil and basic commodities as well as water and power rates, continue to rise, he said, the people’s conditions will worsen and this may lead them to remove her from the presidency.

Ocampo sad that considering the heavy indebtedness of the country and rising unemployment rates, the Philippines is now in worse condition that it was during the presidency of Joseph Ejercito Estrada, who was ousted through a people-power uprising in 2001.

So what is the secret behind Macapagal-Arroyo’s lasting this long in Malacañang? Ocampo looks at her staying power as coming from her “token acts of charity, as in the distribution of land titles, and her quick reactions to emergency situations.”

What about the progressive party-list bloc? What can the people expect from Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, and GWP after 2004?

“By ourselves we don’t have enough numbers to really affect the quality of legislation,” Ocampo said. “But expect us to expand our networking with progressive-minded colleagues in furtherance of people’s issues.” Bulatlat

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