Erap ouster could be the crucible for modernization - FROM A DISTANCE By Carmen N. Pedrosa

A crucible for modernization. While our energies are concentrated towards removing a corrupt and inept president, something more important is happening to us as a people and to the Philippines as a country. We are changing. The country and the politics we have fostered through the years are changing. Wittingly or unwittingly, we are being thrust into a crucible from which we might emerge into modernity. That is what is at the root of the apprehension on what would replace the Erap government. Will it be more of the same, or merely a rehash of the old? I do not think this apprehension is directed at Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo alone. Rather, I think it is an impatience with ourselves, a regret, if you wish, that with our potential and capability as a people we are hardly coping even with providing for our basic needs while our neighbors compete in the front line. Instead, here we are again using time and resources to oust a president who was more concerned with amassing wealth for himself and his mistresses than he was in running the country.

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Creating the ideas and rhetoric for new governance. The key is how to articulate the discontent with the old while at the same time inventing and creating ideas and the rhetoric for the new. At the same time the new can only have wide acceptance if it will serve the citizenry at large, all the classes, whether rich or poor, politicians or non-politicians. A friend recently said to me – isn’t it ironic that two presidents, one very bright, Marcos and the other well very . . . . whatever you want to call him, Erap, have awakened the Filipino’s sense of citizenry.

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Why Erap and Miriam are optimistic about acquittal. Camilo Sabio, the mild-mannered president of the Philippine Constitution Association (PHILCONSA), surprised almost everyone who attended that luncheon meeting last Tuesday with his fighting speech. He said there are two reasons for Erap’s and Senator Santiago’s optimism about the President’s acquittal: Erap’s firm control of the impeachment court – i.e., the Senate and through the Senate – his firm control of the rules of procedure and evidence therein. Senator Aquilino Pimentel may be credible but as Mr. Sabio points out he has his own weaknesses. According to Sabio, Senator Pimentel needs Erap’s support to capture political dominance in Cagayan de Oro City and in Misamis Oriental in 2001 in the run-up to the Presidential elections of 2004. The Philconsa president said the senators did not have to don jurist’s robes when they took their oaths. They were politicians and in any case there is no need to hide their party politics. "Their being politicians – even partisan politicians – is accepted and sanctioned by the framers of the 1987 Constitution, Sabio adds in his speech cum critique of the impeachment proceedings.

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Impeachment remains a game of numbers. Whatever Senator Santiago said to the newspaper she did not name, Erap’s acquittal will be a game of numbers and the Palace is moving heaven and earth to get these numbers on their side. Having said that, miracles do happen. Speaker Manuel Villar’s inspired act was one such miracle. We need another when they vote in the Senate. While some Erap cohorts distract us with legalese, about rules of evidence, etc. etc. backdoor negotiations are in full swing. In Sabio’s view, the Senate should not have adopted the United States Senate Rules of Procedure and Practice which Senator Santiago herself said, "favors a sitting President." Sabio used strong words to condemn the Senate for the adoption and said it, too, has betrayed the public trust because that was not the intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution.

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"God Save the King" is already in motion. One does not have to be a master tactician to see that a "God Save the King" strategy is already in motion. Yesterday’s newspapers show pictures of Erap in a barnstorming tour of Nueva Ecija above the fold and Senators Honasan and Tessie Aquino-Oreta asking other senators to take a leave of absence from their parties to ensure "credibility" of the impeachment process below the fold. As if a mere leave of absence can make politicians more credible! I am surprised that this younger sister of Ninoy has the effrontery to pontificate after confessing to having received balato from the President after a mahjongg game. Should she not be inhibited (since she does not have the delicadeza to inhibit herself) from joining the jurors’ panel. Shouldn’t she be among the accused panel instead? With Erap himself endorsing her "leave of absence" so that the impeachment process will have credibility claptrap, the suggestion is laughable.

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Keep tuned in on the media plan and surveys to favor Erap. As a media expert pointed out, keep your mind tuned in to particular sections of the media plan in the "God Save the King" strategy. First, the public must bear in mind when reading newspapers that payolas to media people will be beefed up (in these hard times, these can be irresistible) to give favorable coverage to Erap. Although Governor Singson has already exposed how the moneys for media are sourced, it will still be necessary to be wary about media coverage from hereon. That suggestion is contained in the "God Save the King" strategy. "The normal kitties that the OPS and the senate liaison spend on our media supporters need to be increased since this is a crisis period . . . " They can deny it to high heavens but wherever the "God Save the King" paper comes from it is in fact already unraveling before our eyes, this media expert adds. The plan confirms that the Palace retains a network of commentators, deskmen, and reporters, uses the government-run media – Channels 4, 9 and 13, Radyo ng Bayan, People’s Journal/Tonite – to run government crisis propaganda and to intentionally downplay the impact of the negative developments, operates a telephone brigade to disinform and misinform. Do you wonder that talk-show polls seem to reflect an abnormally high pro-Palace number when telephones are not easily accessible to Estrada class E followers? my source asks. It is the upperclass households who have phones at home and who follow these shows if one would review the profile of their ratings on the Media Pulse Surveys. So are recent surveys being made to bail out the Palace? How come recent surveys now contradict trends in previous surveys? Has Erap improved his governance? Or maybe life has improve.

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Mike Velarde’s crowds are not for Erap, they are just victims of Mike Velarde’s money-making prowess. I have often wondered what makes the El Shaddai tick. They are Catholics organized as one big barkada to sing and dance and pray to enrich Mike Velarde. It still escapes me how Mike Velarde is able to get away with his "enterprise" of hakot crowds, who wave their hands and call on God as a sign of Erap’s popularity. What is the Catholic Church doing about this money-making renegade who cynically uses ignorant Filipinos to enrich himself through favors from the Palace? As far as I know, the El Shaddai is somehow tied up with the Catholic Church and that may be the reason why nominal Catholics take to him. Most of its members are Catholics. Why can’t the Catholic Church draw up a program to educate its constituents on the pitfalls of religious demagoguery? Had the Catholic Church been more serious about its teachings, we would not have a Mike Velarde contradicting its own stand about the immorality and uselessness of top government officials. It is not too late to spread the word among the faithful that El Shaddai has been perverted to be a tool of a man bent on enriching himself through religious demagoguery. According to the "God Save the King" plan Mike Velarde will arrange a meeting with Erap and then Velarde will announce that Erap is a changed man, he has reformed and will correct his mistakes. Oh, God. He sounds like a broken record.

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The signs point to a collision course for Erap and sovereign citizens. Although most people want the impeachment proceedings to succeed to redeem our competence and ability to live according to our Constitution, it does not seem that Erap and his cohorts, despite all appearances, are willing to cooperate. We’re back where we started. We alone, as sovereign citizens, can bring about good governance and we have to pay for it to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "with blood, sweat and tears." Good governance is in our hands. When a president cannot govern according to the mandate given by sovereign citizens, they will have no recourse but to withdraw that mandate through a constitutional process or otherwise. As we come close to the day of reckoning, we are down the road to collision.

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My e-mail address is [email protected]