The gathering storm; is there a way out?

It was Julius Caesar, I believe, who said great decisions are made at floodtide since once the flood recedes the opportunity is lost, the deft seizure of history disappears. I am afraid the Philippines is again reaching that point. The past days have been marked by turbulent events. It’s a pity I cannot wait for the day – today – to end as I write this piece. There’s such a thing as a columnist’s deadline. About half a hundred young rebel soldiers have camped out in Makati, holding the nation hostage with bombs that can blow this corporate citadel up. And with it, our troubled republic.

They demand the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and members of her cabinet or else. For her part, GMA, who doubles up as commander-in-chief, warned the rebels to lay down their arms before or exactly 5 p.m. Sunday. If not, the full force of the military would be used to dislodge or disarm, then arrest and court-martial them. If they resist, they would be fired upon and decimated.

It has been my habit to anticipate and forecast the turn of events. In this instance, I am convinced the rebels will give up, surrender, for the odds against them are just too formidable. And yet, their uprising, even if aborted, is historically significant. It is a trigger to future events. Like the tip of an iceberg, it swirls down to a great body that could one day rush to the surface and break into pieces and convulse the nation.

And yet I must resist any comparison with the 1989 coup led by Col. Gringo Honasan.

In both cases, there seems to be no widespread public support. Gringo had to swallow his pride in 1989 and surrender his RAM forces in Makati. He was lucky. Together with the coup’s ringleaders, Gringo would have been court-martialed and kicked into the colaboose. Except that the government of President Corazon Aquino then, and Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos had pusong mamon – and virtually exonerated them. Today, there is some public, maybe even substantial sympathy for the military rebels. But there is hardly any widespread sympathy and support for the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

That was a lulu. Malacañang called for "civil society" to pour in a great flood to the EDSA Shrine Saturday. Only a few dozens, or so it seemed, heeded Malacañang’s call. Civil society stayed away as did Jaime Cardinal Sin, Cory Aquino and Fidel Valdez Ramos. Bishop Soc Villegas, Keeper of the Shrine, was shell-shocked. Imagine the EDSA Shrine bereft of its so-called faithful? Time there was when Cardinal Sin beckoned and the legions of the Church gullied forth like the sands of the sea. The times have indeed changed!

Now let’s get to the issue at hand with a dozen knives, carve out dead tissues and see if we can cut to the bone.

To begin. What is happening today is almost exactly like what we have forecast many, many months ago, even two years ago. We said then that democracy had copped out and taken flight in the Philippines. We said all of our institutions were faltering and failing, and the time would come when this would develop into a major national crisis. Rock-bottom poverty. Graft and corruption. Crime and violence. These and a demographic explosion had brought us to a narrow pass in the mountains.

Either we reformed or we fell. Either we tamed the social volcano or it would erupt and engulf us all in civil war or revolution.

Our great fear was that the military establishment was best positioned to take over if chaos and anarchy swept the land. Our other fear was that the communist Left would rampage. Strategically allied with the Muslim secessionist rebellion in Mindanao, the NPA guerrillas could ignite an impoverished and unhappy citizenry to revolt. But a military takeover could easily beat the NPA in taking over Malacañang. The big weakness of a communist revolution was its Marxist – therefore godless – atheist bedrock, anathema in this only Christian nation in Asia. But I had cut through to all this mess.

What had brought the Philippines down more than anything else was its breezy, balmy tropical culture, lashed to the rocks even more by our own unique brand of Christianity which extolled infinite patience, earthly acceptance of pain, agony and suffering. The rewards would come in heaven. In juxtaposition, we were swept into the material, supermarket culture of America, the steamy raptures of sex and instant gratification. Together, they wrestled our concept of democracy to just three things – elections, a constitution, and the so-called countervailing powers of the executive, legislative, judiciary.

In between, law and order became a big, big joke. Between irresponsibility and duty to nation, Filipinos chose the former. Duty was too much of a bother. Irresponsibility was so much joy.

And so? The present impasse presents a great opportunity for the citizenry, especially civil society, to finally hunker down for the first time and decide what is good for the country. All People Power so far has had to do was gather by the hundreds of thousands in the streets and bring down a shameful, thieving, greedy and scandalous president. It didn’t work. People Power I was no people power at all, but simply the power of the streets to shudder and shame a sitting president to stand down. The same thing for People Power II. The same system remains. The same politicians. The same institutions. The same rhythm.

In this, we are so different from many of our neighbors in Asia.

The Japanese, Chinese, Thais, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Koreans function as a community. Beyond his immediate family, the Filipino hardly cares for anybody, trust anybody. National economies advance and prosper when bonds of neighborhood, community and nation get the people to spread their area of trust. This way, mass and high education get to be the obligation of almost everybody. Work is speeded up tenfold, productivity raised to unheard of levels, lines of command reduced to the minimum. Progress and prosperity only take decades to reach mountaintop. The Philippines has ambled like a pack horse for over half a century and we are no different today from Burma or Cambodia.

Trigger, we did say trigger.

Today, President GMA will deliver her much awaited SONA (State of the Nation Address). But it will be radically different from what she had earlier prepared. A long stream of events these past two years of her presidency had discombobulated her. Not entirely her fault as we have been saying in this space. She inherited the ugly, stinking bear. What is worse is that she has not given this bear a bath. Events have piled up. The escape of Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi exploded in her face. The revolt of the young, idealistic army officers was a big slash in the President’s belly. In truth, GMA does not know who her political enemies are.

What then will she do? There is no magician’s black hat to dip into and pull out the remedies. With the shadows gathering, the storm thickening, she will rely on military and police support to stay the course for 2004. And yet the military and the police have not exactly been the republic’s most notable pillars. Graft and corruption have long festered in both. One cannot blame the young rebel officers for calling a spade a spade, and identify many of their generals as dirty, stinking spades. They are. And Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes better stop pretending the top layers of the military are acolytes of St. Gabriel.

Can she stay the course? Or, staggering to fore and aft, will she resort to martial rule? Will the military and police support her? Will the elections scheduled for 2004 therefore be cast to Coventry? Or, somewhere along the way, will civil society raise the red flag and puncture the pomposity of the military? And banish the ghosts of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels?

This, verily, is the pits.

More than a year ago, we raised the concept of Freedom Force in anticipation of this crisis. But the fascisti of the Church saw Mephisto where there was none, a group of plotters playing footsies with 25 generals and drew Jaime Cardinal Sin into their conspiracy. And so Freedom Force laid low and just as well. For the crisis did not materialize that year. Now it is materializing and many members of civil society are beating the woods to head off the wolves.

Right now, I do not see the rebel military youth advancing their cause it is true that their idol, icon and guru is Sen. Gringo Honasan. Behind Honasan is former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. Both of them laid claim to EDSA and sought to rewrite history by asserting it was they and the RAM who triggered and launched EDSA. That was bunk. That was bunkum. It was then the Church, principally Jaime Cardinal Sin and principally the Yellow Army of Cory Aquino, that stoked EDSA’s fires.

Now the future beckons with the cross winds of what looks like a raging storm.