Coup rumors - My Viewpoint

One of the bogus text messages many of us received this last weekend, apart from that terribly cruel one about the supposed death of Pope John Paul II, had to do with an imaginary takeover of Malacañang Palace by rebel soldiers. But in a way, those sick minds that thought up this caper have done us a favor. Now we know, if we didn't know already, that text messages on cellphones can be a source of massive, concerted disinformation and possibly destabilization.

It's the same warning we've been getting about the Internet, admittedly one vehicle of information that is changing the world's political and economic landscape. You get a lot of useful information from the Net, but you get an awful lot of junk, too, including porno and a lot of garbage from the lunatic fringe.

Fortunately, the radio commentators I heard on Monday morning were one in condemning the idea of another cycle of coups and counter-coups in this country. Public surveys and call-in comments from audiences were overwhelmingly against the idea. Clearly, people see this not as a partisan issue, but one of national survival. There is real concern about the Pandora's Box we open, about the people who come into power after a coup, about whether our country will ever be able to keep a democratic system in place again if this kind of cynical adventurism disguised as patriotism is allowed to triumph.

Which is not to say that fiscalization and political opposition -- no matter how persistent or noisy -- are necessarily bad. On the contrary, they are the lifeblood of democracy. The quality of the opposition may vary, from the responsible and substantive to the just plain silly. But the administration should not be overly discombobulated, much less be driven to irritation or anger, by the constant criticism. What it should do is engage, encourage, dialogue and, when warranted, enter into a lively debate on issues rather than personalities. This contest should go beyond histrionics or gutter-sniping. I believe there are enough competent and honest stalwarts of government -- Titoy Pardo, Mar Roxas, Orly Mercado, Quasi Romualdez and Paeng Buenaventura, to name just a few -- who can hold their own in reasoned discourse with equally able and sincere people in the political opposition who happen to disagree with the administration's policies.

But a violent coup d'etat is not the solution. I thought we had learned this lesson from the difficult days Cory Aquino had to go through. The next presidential elections are scheduled for 2004. Our Constitution provides for the legal methods to unseat an incumbent President. This should be the only framework for the activities of any movement calling for an effective reversal of the results of a valid election. They can do anything within that framework. In the same way, an incumbent can resist these efforts with all the lawful means at his disposal.

We should keep a sense of balance and proportion about this exercise. Neither should we fool ourselves into believing that steps such as coups can be taken without profound and far-reaching consequences. Put simply, if our aim is national unity and common purpose, a coup d'etat is the worst prescription for whatever we think makes those aims impossible to achieve today.

Ricardo V. Puno, Jr.'s e-mail address: [email protected]