Lugait Online!

Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/...46/Its-Arroyo-stupid

Inquirer.net

I- TEAM REPORT: THINK ISSUE
It’s Arroyo, stupid


By Fernando del Mundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:01:00 02/15/2010

Filed Under: Inquirer Politics, Governance, Graft & Corruption


(Editor’s note: Following is the first in a series of reports on major issues in the May 10 presidential election.)

THE RECKONING began barely four months before Judgment Day.

The question is: Are we better off today than we were at the start of the new millennium under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? Was her stewardship the best of times, or was it the worst of times? Are we all going to heaven, or are we all going the other way?

A two-page ad published in major newspapers on Jan. 20 ticked off the accomplishments the Arroyo administration had racked up since she took power nine years ago in a people power revolt.

The numbers seemed to indicate a path to Nirvana.

Ganito tayo noon. Ganito tayo ngayon. That was then. This is now.

The before-and-after matrix obviously meant to airbrush the Arroyo years in the run-up to the May 10 elections covered the economy, infrastructure, jobs, social development, peace and order, agriculture, energy, environment and digital infrastructure.

For example, the ads pointed out that while the gross domestic product averaged 3.3 percent during Corazon Aquino’s watch, 3.6 under Fidel Ramos, and 4.7 in the short-lived Joseph Estrada rule, it was 4.86 in 2001-2008 Arroyo years. Jobs generated totaled 14.2 million.

Average inflation rate was 5.37 percent, the lowest since 1966. Gross international reserves hit $45.03 billion in December 2009 against $15.06 billion at the close of 2000. Foreign debt in relation to GDP was 33.85 percent as of September 2009 compared with 67.46 percent in 2000. Credit ratings by Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s were both stable.

“Real numbers, better lives,” the ads proclaimed. That they were taken out by the government was not revealed. The only giveaway was the use of green type faces for the positive labels—the campaign color of former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, the administration’s presidential candidate.

“I checked the jobs, wages, and industrial relations portions because these were indices of my previous life,” former Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas wrote in her column in another newspaper. “They coincide. The fact is, we have moved forward.”

Why so unpopular

If that is the case, why is this President so unpopular, much more so than any sitting Chief Executive, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos included, as borne out by every survey in recent years? How has she failed in the eyes of so many? Let us count the ways.

Ms Arroyo came to power in January 2001 following the ouster of Estrada in a sequel to the iconic Edsa People Power Revolution in 1986. The first uprising had ousted Marcos after nearly a decade and a half of strongman rule.

The replay—nothing more than an out-and-out military coup—was triggered by moral indignation over the abortive Senate impeachment hearings against the actor-turned-politician. The televised proceedings showed he was up to his eyeballs in wine, women and wampum supposedly weaseled from “jueteng” (illegal numbers game) collections and shady business deals.

Arroyo, his vice president, replaced him.

Both revolts, both peaceful, were led by Aquino, the revered Jaime Cardinal Sin, his priests and nuns and the cream of Manila’s café society. But while the first Edsa revolt was widely accepted in the capital, the second was dismissed as nothing more than “mob rule” of the self-righteous that illustrated the country’s fragile institutions.

Four months later, impoverished supporters of Estrada attacked Malacañang to demand his reinstatement. Four died and scores were injured in clashes with police.

In her first State of the Nation Address, Ms Arroyo sought to reassure the elite and the middle class that brought her to power and the poor that rebelled against her. She vowed “to raise the moral standards of government and society” as one of the pillars of her war against poverty.

Questionable mandate

With a questionable mandate, Ms Arroyo was dogged by a restive military. More than 300 mutineers, denouncing widespread corruption, seized the Oakwood Premier apartments in Makati City in 2003, demanding her resignation.

Despite a promise that she would not run for president, Ms Arroyo joined the contest in 2004, trouncing another popular movie star, the late Fernando Poe Jr.

Like Estrada, “Da King” appealed to the masses. He had little interest in debates, political visions, alternatives and strategies for governance in an era of globalization, international terrorism and dizzying advances in science and technology. For FPJ, popularity was the name of the game. He would ride on the adulation of his fans.

La Gloria proved him wrong. She put together convenient coalitions, hustled celebrities to join her rallies, saturated media with campaign ads at the homestretch, and won.

The “Hello Garci” revelations in mid-2005 cast doubt on the legitimacy of her election. Wiretapped conversations purportedly between Ms Arroyo and Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano showed she stole the balloting, opponents charged. She denied any wrongdoing, but apologized to the nation for “lapses in judgment.”

Ten Cabinet secretaries resigned in a failed bid to generate mass defections.

Survival at all cost

Teresita “Dinky” Soliman, former secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), recalled a Cabinet meeting in a “crisis mode” after the Garci scandal, where the President reportedly said that “the framework of government now was national security.”

“Let’s bring out the brawn, but we give money to the DSWD so that the poor will always be with us,” Soliman quoted the President as saying.

“I remember saying that it is the right of the poor to be served by us,” she said. “Someone said in the Cabinet, it is political survival at all cost now, Dinky, so we don’t think that way. And then I knew I can’t be a part of the Cabinet any more.”

In February 2006, Ms Arroyo declared a state of emergency to foil a bid by generals to withdraw support from her. Another putsch was attempted in November 2007 when soldiers walked out on their rebellion trial and seized Peninsula Manila Hotel in Makati.

The uprisings were put down, but it was downhill for the besieged President since.

Corruption allegations were raised against Ms Arroyo, including claims that “jueteng” protection payoffs went to a son and a brother-in-law, that fertilizer funds were used during elections, and that her husband was involved in bribery and overpricing in the scuttled $329-million NBN-ZTE deal.

Four impeachment proceedings were mounted against Ms Arroyo in the House of Representatives, but her allies thwarted the initiatives.

Even gods were against her

Even the gods seemed to conspire against Ms Arroyo. On Feb. 17, 2007, incessant rains and an earthquake sent torrents of mud and boulders crashing from a denuded mountain onto the village of Guinsaugon in Southern Leyte. About a thousand people were killed.

Ms Arroyo’s decade of turbulence closed with the devastating onslaughts of Storms “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” in September and October last year. Flooding across wide swaths of Luzon killed about 1,000 people and sent millions fleeing to high ground.

For the first time, the nation was treated to the horrors of climate change and given a preview of the violence the vagaries of nature were likely to bring in a regime of global warming and melting icecaps.

And then there was the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao—unparalleled in its barbarity in the nation’s history. The victims were rivals of the powerful Ampatuan clan, a close Arroyo ally.

All told last year, 129 people were killed in political murders, bringing the total since 2001 to 1,188, according to the rights group Karapatan. The media people killed in Maguindanao were the largest group slaughtered in one incident anywhere in the world. They were among 98 journalists killed under the Arroyo administration.

Opulence amid penury

Subsequent investigations of the massacre unearthed huge caches of weapons and ammunition, including those issued to military and police forces.

The probe also put on the spotlight luxury cars and mansions depicting the opulent lifestyle, in the midst of rural penury, of an obvious recipient of massive political patronage and largesse.

The Ampatuans had delivered crucial votes in the 2004 and 2007 elections to Ms Arroyo and her allies. And the massacre served as a telling reminder of allegations of Ms Arroyo’s tainted mandate and corruption of a mind-boggling scale under her rule.

“Unless they discovered the Yamashita treasure, there’s no way they could have amassed so much wealth,” said Vice Gov. Manny Piñol of the neighboring province of North Cotabato. He was referring to the fabled booty Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita brought to the Philippines after his conquest of Southeast Asia during World War II.

Piñol said a governor could steal billions from the treasury, especially in a conflict-ridden place like Maguindanao, where Moro separatists and communist rebels roam and auditors fear to thread.

Legacy of disasters

“She’s leaving a legacy of disaster,” said political science professor Benito Lim of Ateneo de Manila University. “We have become world class in graft and corruption, in extrajudicial killings,” he said.

Australian businessman Peter Wallace questioned the figures published in the newspaper ads, pointing out that the Arroyo administration had spent less on infrastructure as a percentage of GDP than former President Fidel V. Ramos.

“The ads look great, but in the larger scale in the whole economy, there’s nothing, miniscule,” Wallace said, pointing out that surveys indicate poverty and hunger continue to stalk millions of Filipinos.

“We have a very unequal society, 80 percent of the wealth of the economy is in 20 percent of the population,” he added.

But Ms Arroyo has hung on to dear life. Why?

The doctrine after the “Hello Garci” scandal was that the amount of outrage needed for people to oust anybody was inversely proportional to the attractiveness of the alternative, according to a Palace adviser, who asked not to be identified.

With Estrada, the alternative was better. He had praised his vice president to high heavens, unaware she was working against him, the aide says.

With Ms Arroyo, the alternative was Vice President Noli de Castro. For all his accomplishments as OFW and housing czar, he remains unattractive.

“She is good, but she will never be popular,” said the Palace aide. “Deep inside, existentially, she knows she doesn’t deserve to be there.” With Kate Pedroso, Inquirer Research

Copyright 2010 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: politics.inquirer.net/view.php?db=1&article=20100216-253437

Inquirer Politics

Think issue: Arroyo seeks new mandate in May polls
February 16, 2010 02:35:00
Fernando del Mundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Read Part 1: It’s Arroyo, stupid


(Second of a series)

MANILA, Philippines—With the ghost of “Hello Garci” hounding her, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is seeking a new mandate in the May elections.

She is making an unprecedented run for the congressional seat in her Pampanga home district and is likely to win and become House Speaker after she leaves Malacañang in June.

Palace aides explain that at 62, this workaholic feels she still has a lot to do. She keeps a hectic schedule from dawn to late evening.

On a recent Tuesday, she sat down for a two-hour late dinner with Philippine Daily Inquirer editors after attending a series of five events to promote her pet cybercorridor project for the business process outsourcing sector. It’s a sunshine industry that last year generated revenues totaling $7.2 billion, up 19 percent from 2008.

But one top adviser says that in running for Congress, Ms Arroyo wants to “cover all grounds” to protect herself against critics threatening to prosecute her for corruption and to preserve a legacy tarnished by vote-rigging allegations.

In a sense, the administration party has two presidential candidates—Ms Arroyo and her former defense secretary, Gilbert Teodoro Jr., 45, a Harvard-trained bar topnotcher and Air Force colonel in the reserve force.

One recurring question in the current presidential debates is whether Ms Arroyo should be prosecuted after she steps down—an action that Teodoro says he will leave to judicial authorities.

The only other presidential candidate who has fudged the issue is Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar Jr., the Nacionalista Party standard-bearer who is in a statistical dead heat at the top in popularity surveys with Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

There is widespread speculation that while Teodoro is officially Malacañang’s candidate, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo has secretly forged a deal to support Villar in exchange for the House speakership for his wife—a rumor that Palace spokespersons dismiss.

Although he remains at the bottom of popularity surveys, Teodoro is doing all the right things as the administration standard-bearer, unlike Al Gore who kept distance from Bill Clinton despite his solid economic record and lost to George W. Bush in 2000.
One evidence is a series of TV ads showing Teodoro piloting a plane, suggesting he is about to take the country to greater heights, building on the Arroyo legacy.

‘Kiss of death’

Teodoro dismisses claims that an Arroyo endorsement is a “kiss of death”—a perception that gained currency at his official proclamation as the ruling coalition’s candidate in November last year. She refrained from raising his hand, a ritual ceremony on that occasion.

In Metro Manila today, workers are repainting with green—Teodoro’s campaign color—the pink-coated fences, overhead pedestrian passes and urinals with thank you messages to the President for the projects.

Among the candidates, only Teodoro talks of amending the 1987 Constitution.

He says that the Constitution, designed primarily to prevent the rise of another dictator, can stand improvement, particularly its ultranationalist economic provisions, to enhance the country’s global competitiveness.

Many in the opposition suspect that in running for Congress, Ms Arroyo’s main agenda is to revise the Charter, adopt the parliamentary system and become prime minister.

As early as 2003, Ms Arroyo announced her intention to amend the Constitution.

It gained urgency in 2005 after wiretapped conversations purportedly between Ms Arroyo and Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano were leaked. The opposition said that the tapes were evidence the President stole the 2004 elections. She denies the charge.

As the controversy convulsed the nation and sparked calls for her to step aside, the President in August directed the formation of a 55-member consultative commission to hold dialogues across the country and write a new Constitution.

A draft Charter adopting the parliamentary system with transitory provisions giving Ms Arroyo extraordinary powers similar to those exercised by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos was submitted for approval of Congress.

‘Gigantic fraud’

The Senate knocked the initiative down, prompting Ms Arroyo’s supporters to mount a “people’s initiative” to have the document submitted to a plebiscite. The Supreme Court rejected the effort as a “gigantic fraud.”

Until the dying days of the 13th Congress, moves were made to amend the Constitution, but they all perished at the doorstep of the Senate, whose members were all potential presidential timber. Critics say the senators have a vested interest in the status quo.

“We need a revolution to change the Constitution,” says one Palace aide.

The 1935 Constitution was revised under Ferdinand Marcos’s martial law rule. He came up with a Charter modeled after the French parliamentary system with a strong president. It was approved in rump “citizen’s assemblies.”

The 1987 Constitution that supplanted Marcos’s work was a product of President Corazon Aquino’s revolutionary government that was created following the 1986 ouster of the Marcos dictatorship.

President Fidel Ramos likewise attempted to change the Charter, but backed off in the face of strong opposition from civil society groups and the Catholic Church.

Jose V. Abueva, who headed the 2005 consultative commission, says the May vote could be a chance to elect leaders who can deal with the nation’s increasingly complex problems.

“After more than a century of nation-building since 1896 and just over 60 years of democratization since we regained our independence in 1946, the Philippines is still a weak nation, ‘a soft State’ with symptoms of a ‘failing State,’ and ‘an unconsolidated democracy,’” he says.

Dysfunctional system

“After the Edsa revolt in 1986 and under the 1987 Constitution, we formally restored the democracy that Marcos had reversed and destroyed by his authoritarian rule,” says Abueva, a former president of the University of the Philippines.

“But our restored presidential government with its exaggerated checks and balances and our highly centralized unitary system have proved to be dysfunctional in relation to the constitutional vision of building ‘a just and humane’ society and realizing the substance of democracy.”

Political and social scientists say that the liberal democracy that the Philippines adopted has failed to address the yearnings of Filipinos, so unlike Chile’s.

Chile likewise fell under a right-wing dictatorship, which lasted 17 years, but a center-left coalition made the Catholic country the most prosperous in Latin America. Last December, Chile joined the elite 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the first country from the region.

While elections are all about hope, the current exercise has failed to inspire the young, or pump the adrenalin the way the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. did in 1983. That ignited the ouster of the Marcos regime three years later. Evidence is the lukewarm response to the government’s campaign last year to register new voters.

“There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe in elections anymore,” says Diane Despi, 20, a research assistant. While she says she knows she can make a difference, many voters in her village constitute the uneducated poor who will likely sell their votes. “People don’t think issues, especially those in the survival mode.”

Guns, goons and gold

The structural changes that Filipino academics like Abueva talk about would address Despi’s frustrations at elections brought about by a culture of “guns, goons and gold” that is a product of a dysfunctional political system.

It is a system that allows the proliferation of political parties without vision, transparency or accountability. It prevents the winnowing and rising of youthful promising leaders in the mold of John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama.

Corruption of elections has led to such controversies as the “Hello Garci” scandal and all of those shenanigans that have engulfed the Arroyo administration—the great Northrail train robbery, the fertilizer scam, the scuttled national broadband deal with China.

“The problem with Gloria is that you can throw any mud at her and it will stick,” says a presidential aide.

“Why is it like this with Gloria? Her accomplishment statistics are good. It’s all about mandate. That’s a big issue in our discussions with ma’am,” the aide adds.

“After Garci, I went through all the strategies. We had a doctrine. I said, ‘Ma’am, if you don’t have a mandate, let’s create it.’ I realize now, you cannot create mandate. You cannot turn it. You cannot command it. It’s really all about democratic election.”

Copyright 2010 INQUIRER.net and content partners. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.