The transition after a revolution - (Part II): Cory Aquino and the transition from Marcos

On the 25th anniversary of the EDSA revolution, a proper question for history is how Corazon Aquino’s presidency brought the nation forward. A nation’s life connects the past with the future. And the processes between these two points in time are the responsibility of those in control of decision-making powers.

The question before historians is where the country would have gone to if a leader of great political or managerial skill were in charge at that moment of political triumph? Cory was a choice pick to assure electoral victory of the opposition. What if she had been one who, like Ninoy Aquino, was prepared for leadership all her life?

Cory’s true shortcoming was experience. She had no ambition for power or fame. She had never been tested in past leadership struggles. In short, she did not have the qualities that were needed to guide a whole nation especially in times of grave crisis. Her only long term experience for leadership was that of having managed a household –even though it was that of an ambitious politician – as wife of Ninoy Aquino.

She therefore navigated the dangerous waters of leadership without the proper equipment. Yet the various demands of the many seekers of power and of favors required that she screen the best persons for critical appointments. But for her immediate circle of support, she was surrounded by a rainbow coalition of political forces with many conflicting positions regarding important public issues.

If she were an experienced leader, she would have had a template (so to speak) with which to cure the nation’s ills, including those that she believed Marcos had brought upon the nation. But she would also have carefully acknowledged and worked to refine further the various accomplishments that Marcos had left as useful legacy for the nation.

Her closest political advisers included a motley group. First were the politicians (some of them were close relatives). Then there were the comrades in arms in the human rights struggle against the hard hand of martial law. Then there were the deprived former political enemies of Marcos who hankered for vengeance. Some were businessmen who were disfavored and many just wanted a new leader. And of course there were those who were opposed simply to Marcos or the political and economic system.

In this setting, it was natural that she would fall into traps that would plunge her into committing serious mistakes. Her contribution to the nation for which she is best acknowledged as the nation’s icon was that she rescued the nation from a leader who wanted to rule for life, for himself and for family. As a result, she restored the country to more open democratic challenges.

A leader’s role would have been to unite the nation as quickly as possible after consolidating power. Then she would have moved toward nation-building having in mind to solve the practical economic and social problems that the nation faced.

Jovito Salonga, whom Cory appointed as head of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), was able to expose through depositions by some critical individuals who were associated with the plunder issue the legal vehicles employed to launder money flows. But he was able to secure such critical information only through compromises with the affected parties.

In short, the means to move forward was to show readiness to accept a less than perfect outcome to achieve a fresh start. And so it is with nation building. One quarter century later, we are still faced with unsettled legal cases that have brought the nation nowhere except for an expense of enormous state resources.

True, there were substantial recoveries of significant moneys from the Marcoses. Some of these could still have been achieved through a more conciliatory move to settle sequestered financial accounts that applied to parties that were not directly associated with the plunder issue. In fact, through the years the PCGG only dissipated a lot of sequestered economic assets through mismanagement.

It would take a long discussion to enumerate problems that arose during the critical transition period after the EDSA I changes. Though some might have been unavoidable, there were just quite a few too many that the nation is still paying for:

• Cory Aquino failed to maximize the use of her enormous political capital to mobilize international assistance for her political and economic success. Such international support was present. But it was of a small scale, not sufficient to carry the country forward, to overcome the huge resource gaps that she inherited.

• Open debates among cabinet leaders in the press led to so many confused voices for the government. She portrayed a captain at sea without any clear direction. As a result, foreign eyes could only regard the country’s possibilities with low expectations.

• Without a coherent and consistent voice coming from the political leadership, there was no clear set of directions for the economy. This encouraged challenges to the regime that led to military coup attempts that further unsettled the political climate.

• Examples of this lack of consistent directions were the frequency of labor unrest instigated by strikes and work disruptions that were instigated by her more radical allies in the political struggle. This aggravated the problems of high cost in the economy. This affected the foreign direct investments at a time when huge investment flows were moving toward Southeast Asian countries.

• She appointed a constitutional commission without giving it the proper thoughts of a leader with vision of the future. The result was a wordy document that touched on all topics of economic and social life within the ambit of the constitution. As a result, a more imperfect document replaced the simpler and yet already imperfect constitutional documents of the past (the 1935 and the 1973 constitutions).

• In the effort to bring government reform and accommodate applicants for government jobs, the Career Executive Service (CES) was severely weakened and marginalized. This was one of the strong points of the Marcos government as the latter tried to bring expertise and stability to the government bureaucracy.

• With the CES broken, the government lost enormous institutional memory during a time when major changes were being undertaken. The impact of this on the implementation of government programs across many departments and bureaus of government was very significant by reducing productivity in government.

• Her decision to abolish the department of Energy was a major disaster for the nation. This action diminished the country’s energy priorities. The government simply failed to understand the magnitude of its energy situation.

• As a result, the finished nuclear power electricity generation plant in Bataan was not put into operation. The corruption issue might have been a problem in this facility, but that could have been addressed separately. As to the safety issues that were raised against the project, they were exaggerated by those opposed to nuclear energy. The same plants were put into safe operational work in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan – countries that adopted the nuclear option at the same time as Marcos.

• Therefore, the nation suffered almost a decade of serious energy crisis. This factor alone might have discouraged enormous flows of new private foreign investment resources into the country during that time. It would take almost all the years of the successor government of Fidel Ramos as president to repair this huge damage.

These are just some of the obvious problems or mistakes of the transition. In truth, it was not as rosy-colored as many reviews of EDSA I make on anniversary occasions. The industrial and commercial inadequacies of the country today are partly traced to an imperfect transition.

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