ANALYSIS

A Battered Presidency

The deteriorating economic conditions, the political rifts in the ruling elite, the growing clamor for the President to resign and the surge of the revolutionary movement in the countryside will haunt Macapagal-Arroyo no end in the months ahead. Her options are getting narrower.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat

Badly bruised by charges of corruption, illegal gambling and unabated violence, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration is by all indications headed for a disaster. Its plummeting popularity rating based on surveys and a keen reading of the public pulse only shows a deeper wound – a political support that’s getting narrower by the day. Save for the military – which the President herself cannot rein in – the fragile coalition of parties in Congress and U.S. President George Bush, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cannot count on a solid political base she could mobilize to take her social and economic agenda forward. Remove the trappings of the presidential leadership – the official statements, publicized visits in the provinces and overseas travels – and you are left with a president who is unable to govern anymore. When Macapagal-Arroyo was thrust into the presidency following the unseating of Joseph Estrada in January 2001 and with a pledge to the broad oust-Estrada movement to reform the government, she took on the reins of power that was already weakened by corruption, crime syndicates inside and outside government, fiscal deficit and other serious economic

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at a mass for Pope Benedict XVI at the Manila Cathedral, April 26 Photo by Aubrey SC Makilan

woes. The organized Left – the major force that played a central role in Estrada’s ouster – had pledged its support for her but only on principled grounds – that she start thoroughgoing reforms and heed the demands for genuine land reform, to uphold national sovereignty, to address the issue of human rights violations squarely and to increase labor wages, among others.

All through the more than three years of her presidency, Macapagal-Arroyo – herself a member of the traditional ruling elite – pursued policies that were anything but pro-people, deepened the country’s ties with the United States along the master-and-slave tradition, and began to deal with progressive and revolutionary forces with a mailed fist.

Extended crisis

As a result, the President’s pro-elite and pro-globalization policies have only aggravated rural poverty and urban unemployment and triggered an unprecedented financial crisis. The crisis has extended to other realms: in education, where the dropout rate at all levels has risen while new graduates cannot find jobs; as well as in the health, housing and other sectors. Agricultural production has been badly hit turning the country into a food importer and its food security continually threatened. Public surveys reveal the dire times: the poverty threshold has increased and so is the number of people going hungry everyday. About 12 percent of the people – up from 10 percent a few years ago – say they will support calls for a change in government. Six out of 10 want the President to be replaced now.

It is also in the region of political and foreign policy where disastrous consequences have resulted for which Macapagal-Arroyo should be held accountable. Her blind support for Bush’s war on terror that was, in the first place, based on fabricated lies deepened the country’s economic and military dependence on the United States, restored U.S. military presence and dragged the poor country into Pentagon’s global wars of aggression. Her own war on terror in the Philippines has boosted the military’s brinkmanship particularly in security affairs as well as in peace negotiations with the Marxist and Moro revolutionary forces. At least 10 agreements already forged with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines – agreements that would have given peace a chance – cannot be implemented because the Macapagal-Arroyo government has chosen to dishonor these by insisting on the Left to capitulate with another pressure to boot – the liquidation of alleged and unarmed legal personalities of the NDFP.

The war has also renewed the campaign of political repression targeting in particular legitimate people’s organizations and political dissenters in all walks of life – progressive legislators, activists, journalists, church people, human rights volunteers, lawyers, women, youth and others. Part of the armed crackdown is to restore fascist rule by legislating a super anti-terrorism act that aims to curtail civil liberties and force legitimate progressive organizations into the underground.

Most corrupt, most dangerous

It is under Macapagal-Arroyo that the Philippines has remained in the top list of the most corrupt countries in the world and as the most dangerous country ever for activists, journalists, lawyers, rights watchdogs, the clergy and legislators. Rotten to the core, the regime’s oppressive policies and inept leadership have made Macapagal-Arroyo the Filipino people’s major thorn – although the more perceptive observer can also say she is a temporary aberration in a political and economic system that has long been in a terminal crisis.

Be that as it may, signs are building up revealing widespread skepticism about Macapagal-Arroyo’s ability to stay in power, serious rifts in the ruling elite and public disillusionment not only in the President but also in the present government as an institution. There have been major cabinet resignations in recent months, the most recent of which is that of Haydee Yorac of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG). Yorac’s resignation and the recent jueteng scandal boosted allegations of corruption in government and links to crime syndicates involving presidential relatives, some cabinet officials as well as political, military and police allies of Macapagal-Arroyo. Church leaders, among them at last eight Catholic archbishops and bishops, have also aired their disgust over similar reports including the culture of impunity that has resulted in the string of killings taking place all over the country.

As expected, the confluence of these events and the upsurge of mass protests spearheaded by the recent nationwide transport strike and the May 1 indignation rallies were seized by anti-Arroyo groups from the political elite to call for the ouster of the President and the establishment of a military junta. But the call by the Coalition for National Salvation backfired even before it could take off partly due to some of its leaders’ bias against Leftist politics. Former Defense Secretary Fortunato Abat, said to be close to former President Fidel V. Ramos, thumbed down proposals to join the Labor Day rally in Manila. The big May 1 rally at Liwasang Bonifacio, led by the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May 1st Movement) and other militant multisectoral organizations, called for the ouster of Macapagal-Arroyo raising prospects that this could lead to yet another people power.

It would be sheer speculation now to entertain ideas that the country will likely see another president thrown out of power – possibly within the next two years. But each period of acute crisis that Filipinos have been confronted with has always led to a president being ousted from office – the strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. One thing is certain though: the deteriorating economic conditions, the political rifts in the ruling elite, the growing clamor for the President to resign and the surge of the revolutionary movement in the countryside will haunt Macapagal-Arroyo no end in the months ahead. Her options are getting narrower. Bulatlat

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