To counter the ‘lynching mob’ Erap may be stoking up a class struggle by mobilizing poor versus rich - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

The middle class and the Radical Left may be strange bedfellows, but the Makati rallies show red flags proliferating among the "yellow" brigades which are seeking to do a reprise of the EDSA People Power revolution of 1986.

Can this alliance of Church, Businessmen, "Concerned Citizens", Cause-oriented Groups and the Leftists manage to shout President Estrada into "resigning", or as ex-President Cory Aquino suggested, at least making the "supreme sacrifice" of going on leave of absence? Not at all. Right now, a defiant President is circling the wagons and summoning his partisans and supporters to Malacañang, conducting "¿somos o no somos?" loyalty checks and dispensing "alms" everywhere.

For the past few days, there have been non-stop caucuses and meetings with congressmen who have been trooping to the Palace to confer on how to strike down the "impeachment" initiative launched by the opposition. The conferences are not on whether an "impeachment" move can be defeated (they already have the numbers in both chambers to accomplish that, even if, in the Senate, there could be a few spectacular defections).

The idea is how to properly word the rejection of the "impeachment" bill so as to exonerate the President as well. If the solons get their "Christmas" in October, well, that may well be part of the package. After all, the Chinese ideogram for "crisis" combines the symbols for "danger" and "opportunity." The Chinese can be wise, even though among them they have Atong Ang, Lucio Co, Jaime Dichaves (but aren’t they wiseguys, too, in the ways of business?).

President Estrada has already declared he will "never" resign because he has "a sworn duty to the masses." And he may have lost sleep, what with those back-to-back strategy sessions, but he’s hanging tough. He believes those who have been rallying are those who always opposed him anyway, including the quite-evident opposition leaders so visible in the press, those hurling "yellow confetti" showers, the Makati Business Club, the bishops and nuns, the people from the luxury "villages."

The terrible thing about the embarrassing aftermath of Governor Chavit Singson’s shocking "revelations" is that the jueteng affair has led to a radical polarization of positions. Estrada has fled to the comfort of what he considers his original constituency, the mahirap and the masa. He’s out there visiting squatter areas, handing out land titles, promising the poor low-cost housing, whipping into a frenzy with his back-to-the-wall rhetoric the kapus-palad.

In short, what we see, to our dismay, are the makings of a class-struggle provoked anew by a desperate President. The poor versus the rich. After all, some Palace strategists may argue, the mahirap don’t care about jueteng payola accusations. Jueteng, in fact, is what fuels the dreams of the poor of becoming "instantly rich." Moreover, the poor and, indeed, even a portion of the middle class have grown cynical. The EDSA Revolution, after all, offered "salvation" to all, but freedom did not make the plight of the poor any better. Estrada invoked the wrong example when he referred to Mrs. Aquino’s total "brownouts" and asked her why she hadn’t at that time "resigned", owing to her failure. The real failure of her regime, launched with such great hopes at the dawn of liberty, reborn, is that it quickly deteriorated into the same bureaucratic slime, the corruption and the chicanery – the kamag-anak incorporated – and, yes, jueteng as well. It should appall us, in fact to see former jueteng lords at the forefront of the current "moral crusade" and those "oust-Erap" rallies. As for the poor? They were poor under two succeeding Presidents – and if Erap is ejected and La Gloria comes into glory, or somebody else, their reasoning is that they’ll still be poor.

And so, to evade the "lynch mob" which is now baying at his heels, Mr. Estrada has run to the masa to whip them up against his pursuers and detractors.

Alas, this prospect of long-term instability is what may flush the Philippine peso down the toilet, destroy business, and plunge us to fourth-world status, only one notch above Africa. (The Africans are better off, indeed: Along with the Indians, they’ve managed to take over the United Nations).

Will we survive this crisis? Of course, we will. But there’s hardship, heartbreak and trouble ahead.

* * *

One glaring example of how investment is either making a U-turn or fleeing the Philippines in the wake of the jueteng payola scandal is the case of the mammoth Saint Gobain corporation of France, a $73-billion glassmaking conglomerate – the biggest in France.

Up to three weeks ago, Saint Gobain was poised to go into a US$30 million joint-venture with the San Miguel Corporation for glass-manufacturing here. All of a sudden, three days ago, the company changed its mind and abandoned the project for which they had been "preparing" for three years.

The Asian Wall Street Journal, which is published worldwide in several major cities, ran a sharp editorial yesterday (Thursday, Oct. 19) which it titled: "Estrada's Moment of Truth." The subhead of the lead editorial said: "His Resignation Would be a Kindness to the Filipino People."

The editorial stated that the impeachment move "signals serious trouble for his (Estrada’s) administration" although it erroneously added that "the popular vice president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, resigned from the president’s cabinet just last week and joined the growing chorus of voices demanding that Mr. Estrada resign." This isn’t true. GMA has been saying she wants to lead and unify the Opposition but has pointedly refrained from calling for Erap’s resignation because, as she rightly put it, she would be its beneficiary.

"The president is being accused," the Journal recounted, "of diverting public funds to illegal uses and taking bribes from criminal gambling syndicates. Even if he dodges the impeachment bullet, it is difficult to imagine Mr. Estrada serving out the four years remaining in his six-year term . . ."

"The international community is lining up against him, too. Senior diplomats gave their implicit support to the opposition by appearing at Ms. Arroyo’s Tuesday press conference and listening attentively to her demand that the president step down." (Again, an error in fact). "This group included members from Asian embassies as well as world powers such as France, Britain and the United States."

"Maladministration has damaged the economy. The peso has sunk to record lows against the US dollar," the Journal went on, "while the stock market is at its worst levels in two years. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank have expressed serious concern about the country’s financial health. The ADB’s biannual report released yesterday warned that the Philippines likely will not reach the bare minimum growth rate of 4% to 5% it set for the year. Its efforts to land a $300-million loan from the IMF have been stalled by its financial disarray, so the government faces a significant budget shortfall."

"There is no rainbow over the its hills," the newspaper averred. "A government widely seen as scandal-ridden hardly inspires investors and there is little evidence that Mr. Estrada has the tools, let alone the inclination, to dispel the markets’ doubts by launching a serious clean-up. It must be very frustrating to Fidel Ramos to see his reforms undermined by the old-style politics that has come back into dominance under Estrada."

Vice President Arroyo is obviously the candidate being backed by the Journal’s editors to replace Erap. They played her up with a frontpage second-lead story in the same issue, with her picture, and the headline: "Arroyo Emerges To Unify Opposition Against President." The page one story by reporter James Hookway accurately quoted La Gloria as underscoring: "I have said over and over again that because I am vice president, it would not be appropriate for me to talk about resignation, impeachment, or a leave of absence" for President Estrada.

However, the Journal helpfully published GMA’s biographical outline, and a tidbit about her having been a classmate of US President Bill Clinton in Georgetown University, etc.

In its concluding paragraph, the editorial mentioned above maintains: "Simply no good will come out of a protracted political wrestling match that misdirects government’s attention for over a year. Before this crisis sinks the whole country in the mire, Mr. Estrada could do the people who elected him at least one favor. He could resign."

I don’t believe Erap is inclined to take the AWSJ’s advice.

* * *

With the filing of an impeachment complaint against President Estrada by opposition members of the House of Representatives the other day, two LAMP Senators, Juan Ponce Enrile and Francisco Tatad, have reportedly asked the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to now terminate its inquiry into the accusations of Ilocos Sur Governor Luis "Chavit" Singson, i.e. that the Chief Executive had received over P400 million from jueteng operators and P130 million from the excise tobacco tax refund due Ilocos Sur.

The contention of Enrile and Tatad is that should the impeachment case initiated in the Lower House be given due course and is elevated to the Senate, the members of the upper chamber, with the Chief Justice presiding over the proceedings, will comprise the body which will sit in judgment over the respondent. Thus, it is the argument of Enrile and Tatad that the on-going inquiry by the Senate Blue Ribbon could influence or affect the sound and unbiased judgment of the members of the Upper House.

It’s quite possible, in fact (according to a reliable source "upstairs") that if the Blue Ribbon Committee continues its hearings, there will be a petition filed to inhibit members of that committee who participated in the inquiry. The reason given in such a petition would be that by participating in the inquiry, some member-Senators might already "have prejudged" the case.

This issue has to be resolved satisfactorily. On the other hand, while the contention of Tatad and Enrile may have some merit, the President is not being "accused" in a criminal case, nor is he a defendant in a civil or administrative litigation before a Court of Law, where the Rules of Court or the law of evidence apply. President Estrada is before the Court of Public Opinion where the jury is the Filipino people – with the members of Congress the mere "instruments" in this drama – and, alas, the rest of the world acting as spectators and voyeurs.

The trouble is that, if the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee were to decide to abort or terminate its present inquiry, the public may be offended – and might consider the close-down as an attempt to gag Singson. Already, some Senators have been heckling Singson – which provoked him to warn them he might appear no more – harassing him with technicalities, demanding that he answer only "yes" or "no." As he complained in the Greenhills Walking Corporation forum last Wednesday: "They didn’t even allow me to smile."

The Singson sally was greeted with loud laughter and a wave of applause from the SRO (standing room only) audience in the Ristorante. But this laughter reminds me of the old Italian saying, so poignant in its meaning – Ridamo per non piangere. It says: "We laugh in order not to cry." There’s pain in our current laughter – and much regret.