Pagkupkup ng nangangailangan

O, baka makatulong sa inyo eto para mag-isip ng mas mabuting paraan kung pano mapapatalsik si GMA?! Walang patutunguhan ang dakdak ng dakdak!!! 🙂

How the opposition bungled moves to oust GMA

SPECIAL REPORT

By EFREN L. DANAO, RONNIE CALUMPITA AND MARICEL V. CRUZ, The Manila Times Reporters

When President Arroyo delivers her latest State of the Nation address Monday, the sixth since ascending to the presidency in 2001, she is expected to once again appeal for national unity in the face of a woefully fragmented opposition still gnashing its collective teeth over its multiple, though disparate, attempts to topple her, all of which failed.

The attempts ranged from the politically expedient route of impeachment, coupled with massive protests—dubbed “parliament of the streets”—to fomenting further unrest among troops already restive in the barracks, to using the pulpit to drive home one message: The President has to go.

But the message, although not wanting in the decibel scale, fell on the deaf ears of a population so tired of internecine political strife it tended to favor the subtler call from Malacañan: Enough! Let’s move on with our lives.

No deal

The opposition, quite predictably, is not buying the Malacañan pitch. In fact, weeks before tomorrow’s opening of the third regular session of the Thirteenth Congress, the House secretariat was swamped by impeachment complaints coming from a broad spectrum, from the Palace turncoats now known as the “Hyatt 10,” to members of the clergy.

One tireless mover for impeaching Mrs. Arroyo is House Minority Leader Francis Escudero (NPC, Sorsogon). He has vowed that the opposition would continue a Part 2 of its efforts last year, which fizzled when the opposition forces couldn’t muster the numbers to overturn the recommendation of the House Committee on Justice to shelve the complaint for being inadequate in form and substance.

Such new efforts seem fore­doomed. No new charges against the President have been alleged, and no earthshaking results of the fresh moves are expected. Impeachment, after all, is a political, not a judicial, exercise. He who has the numbers wins.

Worse, the pro-impeachment bloc in the House has not gained new adherents. The numbers have in fact dwindled.

Rep. Luis Villafuerte, who cut his teeth as an oppositionist political strategist during the Marcos regime, has predicted that there would be 10 fewer signatories in the 2006 impeachment complaint.

Among the dropouts is Rep. Jacinto Paras of Negros Oriental, who says he would no longer support the new attempt, as he feels a number of opposition leaders are merely using impeachment to bolster their political plans in 2007, a mid-term election year.

The impeachment charges are bound to be thrown out by the justice committee without hearing on the merits. The rules of the impeachment proceedings provide that the committee can immediately jettison the complaint on the issue of sufficiency in form and substance. It is ironic that the same rules were proposed by the very same men and women composing today’s political opposition in the aftermath of the aborted impeachment of former President Joseph Estrada. They didn’t imagine that the rules they proposed would work to their disadvantage today. A case of sauce for the goose, being also sauce for the gander.

Licking their wounds

But the rules are but one factor in the opposition’s failure to oust the President. Mrs. Arroyo’s acceptance rating was at its lowest last year, but the various groups composing the opposition failed to capitalize on it and ended up licking their wounds, more divided than when they started.

The opposition mounted street protests, impeachment complaints, and even reportedly encouraged the “withdrawal of support” from the administration by some military officers and enlisted men. But the President managed to hold on to power.

A less resolute leader would have folded in the face of withering fire.

Not the diminutive Mrs. Arroyo. In a number of bold steps, she managed to squeeze through the gauntlet, wounded, perhaps, but never cowed.

In two controversial orders, she forbade her advisers to attend congressional investigations which she thought were meant to stymie the executive department’s programs, and threatened the closure of media outlets she deemed were out to sabotage her government. Both edicts were subsequently voided by the Supreme Court. But the message had been delivered.

Supporters and critics alike credit her staying power to something else besides her resolve and political savvy: The opposition blew its chances when it failed to unite in its drive to oust the President.

In fact, political observers point out, ousting the President is the only common item on the opposition’s agenda. On other things, it is hopelessly divided, pulling every which way. This division especially on who should lead the nation in case the President is deposed, has doomed the oust-Arroyo movement from day one.

The how and the who

The people could plainly see that the various opposition groups, even if sometimes they were together on a stage, were not united even in the method of removing President Arroyo.

Voters cannot make a single dynamic decision if they are given too many options. But the opposition leaders were offering the people a choice of four. Some would rid Malacañan of Gloria Arroyo by begging her to resign, others by impeaching her at the House and finding her guilty at the Senate, or forcing to oust her through People Power, or siccing the dogs of the military on her.

The people became even more confused when they pondered who would replace her. Assessing all the opposition leaders who were attacking her and calling for her ouster, they could not see anyone who was not a discredited trapo—except may­be some of the very young politicians. But these were judged too young to be GMA’s immediate replacement.

Sorry spectacle

Critics offer the failure of the political parties last year to impeach the President.

The Nationalist People’s Coalition, founded by the industrialist Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, allowed its members in the House to vote “according to conscience.” The Liberal Party, headed by Senate President Franklin Drilon, voted to impeach the President. Not so fast, said a pro-Arroyo breakaway group led by Mayor Lito Atienza of Manila, which promptly voted to install Atienza as Drilon’s successor. (That imbroglio remains unresolved). Sen. Edgardo Angara, president of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, considered it “sheer folly” for a political party to enforce a stand on impeachment. He recalled that the LDP division started with the impeachment proceedings against President Estrada in 2000 (the party ordered its members to support Estrada). In the 2005 impeachment attempt against Mrs. Arroyo, the LDP adopted the NPC position: vote according to your conscience.

The only opposition bloc most united in seeking Mrs. Arroyo’s ouster is the party-list representatives. But their numbers are puny, ranged against the juggernaut of the President and the Lakas-UMCD coalition.

Traditional politicians

And then there is the intense rivalry between the traditional politicians and the so-called nonpolitical elements in the opposition, the leaders of the late presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr., who openly showed their disdain for politicians. At a rally in Makati in August 2005, for instance, the movie director Joel Lamangan asked all politicians present not to mount the stage and allow Poe’s widow, the actress Susan Roces, to hog the spotlight. The result: the rally turned out to be more of an entertainment extravaganza than an anti-Arroyo demonstration. (Lamangan was subsequently disowned by his former colleagues when, last week, he took the oath as a member of the Liberal Party to run for a congressional seat in Cavite.)

In the 2005 rally, an opposition leader was so incensed by the Lamangan blockade that he vowed never again to participate in any rally organized by the entertainment industry. He also charged, in a talk with newsmen, that as long as Mayor Jejomar Binay of Makati and Minority Leader Escudero continued to push for Susan Roces as opposition leader, the opposition will never succeed in ousting Mrs. Arroyo. Ms. Roces, he said, meant well, but he felt she could never draw the “critical mass” needed to fuel another EDSA 1 or EDSA 2.

The involvement of former President Corazon Aquino and a sprinkling of her “yellow brigade” failed to add more than the usual faces to the rallies. (Mrs. Aquino was to discover that her star had waned when she tried to get inside Fort Bonifacio during the Marine standoff in February. The sentries barred her at the gate.)

The only time the demonstrations took a more vigorous turn was when the militants started to take a more active role.

Truncheons

“The group of Satur [Party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo] is experienced in rallies and they are more willing than others to brave truncheons and water cannons,” said former Sen. Vicente Sotto III, a leader of the United Opposition headed by Mayor Binay. Sotto cited the ability of Ocampo’s group to mobilize students and peasants for rallies. With Ocampo’s help, more participants turned up in political rallies although the “critical mass” the opposition hoped for never materialized. Without the critical mass, the opposition could not force the President to step down.

Ironically, it was perhaps the presence of the red-flag-waving throng during the rallies that further weakened the opposition: it alienated the sector that plays a pivotal role in any power play—the military.

“The military officers are taught right from the very beginning that communists are the enemies of the state,” says retired Commodore Rex Robles, one of the founders of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM). “They are like oil and water.”

Robles adds that some members of the military may be against the administration, but they also vehemently oppose the participation of leftist groups in any post-Arroyo “Council.” EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 showed that no popular mass movement can succeed without the military and the police—who would never allow the presence of their sworn enemy in a governing council, as borne out by recent events.

A tactical alliance between the military and the Reds can perhaps be forged, but this is certain to break up once they oust the administration. First Lt. Lawrence San Juan voiced this sentiment when he said he would never have attended an anti-Arroyo meeting in Quezon had he known that a New People’s Army leader would be present.

Church role

Where does the Catholic Church, so instrumental in unseating two presidents—Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001—fit in the equation?

Luckily for the incumbent president, the Church no longer has a Jaime Cardinal Sin who never hesitated to use his powers of suasion over his flock to make his political choices known. Some called it meddling, but Sin always carried the day for the recipients of his political anointment.

Not anymore. Not only is Cardinal Sin gone, the bishops are as divided in their stand as the opposition. The much-anticipated statement of the Catholic Bishops Congress of the Philippines (CBCP) early this month raised more questions than it answered. What did it mean? The spin doctors of both the Palace and the opposition read different, at times conflicting, interpretations of the statement. Reminds one about the six blind men touching different parts of the elephant and trying to guess what the animal looked like.

Some of Mrs. Arroyo’s critics may not believe so, but the failure to identify a leader who would replace her has kept her in Malacañan longer than the opposition would want her to. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada suggested that a revolutionary council to be headed by his father would take over. Some said Susan Roces was the “logical and sentimental” choice. Others have said they were willing to accept former Senate President Drilon as Malacañan caretaker. All these proposals bombed. And in all talks about a transition government, opposition leaders never mentioned how long the unelected president or governing council would rule the country until normal democratic processes return.

Does Noli count?

Mrs. Arroyo’s Vice President, the former broadcaster Noli de Castro, did not figure in the opposition plans either. They argued that if Mrs. Arroyo cheated in the 2004 elections, so did de Castro. This line of reasoning alone—ignoring the law on succession—has led many to believe that the oust-Arroyo movement is nothing more than an attempt at a power grab that could plunge the nation into bigger uncertainties.

To his credit, the Vice President proved that he is a firm adherent of the constitutional processes and the rule on succession. He rebuffed the offer of the former President Aquino’s and the Hyatt 10’s Black and White Movement to make him the leader of the opposition in unseating Mrs. Arroyo.

Sen. Joker Arroyo, who ran on the administration slate in 2001 but has remained independent, berated the opposition. “They are dictating the rules. They want to remove the President but they want to determine who succeeds her because they do not want Noli. Who gave them the authority to choose who would be president?” he fumed.

That leaves one candidate, former Sen. Loren Legarda, Poe’s running mate in the 2004 elections. Legarda has lodged a protest that has drawn nothing more than lip service from the opposition. In fact, her name is not even mentioned in a transition government scenario. Because of this lack of support, Legarda has had to scrounge for funds for the expensive protest and even had to drop some pilot provinces in her protest for lack of funds.

Legarda has found an ally in her crusade in Sen.Juan Ponce Enrile, who has questioned why the opposition leaders are not supporting her protest. He says that the protest is crucial to determining the legitimacy of succession should the presidency become vacant. Enrile adds that there can be no political stability if the people are not convinced that the successor in Malacañang was not legitimately elected.

The arrest of key suspects in an alleged coup plot against the administration has placed opposition leaders on the defensive, despite their decision to file a rehash of the foiled 2005 impeachment complaint. Their efforts have so far proved insufficient against a President determined to use any and all resources of her office to hold on until her term expires in 2010.