Neither people power revolts nor free elections have led to sweeping changes in this society. As yet another presidential election approaches, there are Filipinos who are resigned to the fact that we are in for another political circus and not much else.
From the Marcos years and the first people power at least we learned to institute safeguards to prevent a return of authoritarianism. No one can fake an ambush again in this country and use it as a pretext to declare martial law.
It says a lot about our society, however, that the man who confessed to faking that ambush and was one of the architects of martial law is still very much around, running for public office in the ticket of action king Fernando Poe Jr., who’s selling new politics to a gullible electorate.
We can’t even change the same tired old faces in the political scene. In the same ticket of FPJ is the former information minister who announced that Ferdinand Marcos had declared martial law.
Corruption at the highest levels is still very much around, although no administration since 1986 has so far been accused of the "kleptocracy" of the Marcos years. Our political system remains feudal, based on patronage and debts of gratitude. Instead of maturing, Philippine politics has worsened with the entry of entertainers. Popularity has become the chief criterion for winning elective office.
Do people really care if they elect clowns to public office? Not when the bulk of the electorate is only functionally literate and is too poor to pay taxes. When you have no financial investment in government, you don’t care too much about how public funds are spent.
If FPJ is promising the rule of law, he may want to start with his supporters, who are threatening to unleash the wrath of the mob on top of the plagues of Egypt if he is disqualified over his citizenship. This issue is not yet settled decisively, it must be emphasized.
Poe can’t even claim to be completely clueless about the ways of politics, since he has campaigned for his best friend throughout Erap’s rise from mayor to president.
FPJ’s detractors are now spreading the word that Da King is as heavy a drinker as his bosom buddy, except FPJ goes for beer while Erap, before he started worrying about his liver and shifting to expensive red wine, preferred Johnnie Walker Blue Label. And the word is that like Erap, FPJ also loses his grip when sufficiently inebriated.
We won’t know the real score until someone in FPJ’s inner circle opens his big mouth about Da King’s drinking habits, the way President Erap the nocturnal carouser was outed by his Palace chief of staff, Aprodicio Lacquian.
Whether or not FPJ has a drinking problem, however, won’t matter to his fans. Just as Erap’s loyal followers shrugged off accusations during his presidential campaign about his gambling, drinking and womanizing.
That Filipinos are again willing to try yet another actor for president is testament to the failure of the administration to effect meaningful change in the past three years.
This is no big surprise, however, since the forces that came together at EDSA II started breaking up as soon as President Arroyo could not accommodate all those collecting political debts. She simply owed too many groups her presidency and it was inevitable that she would disappoint some of those at EDSA Dos. At the same time, she refused to let go of certain characters long associated with graft, making a mockery of the uprising that toppled a president accused of massive corruption. Within weeks the EDSA II forces had parted ways, and some quickly went to work putting down the administration they helped install.
Throughout her presidency, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was saddled with a global economic downturn aggravated by terrorism. She had to battle not just the forces of Erap but also her former allies. Worse, she clearly had such a wrenching time letting go of supporters tainted with corruption that the rare times she caved in to public pressure, her gesture was often seen as too little, too late.
And the millstone around her neck is someone she cannot easily discard. The First Family may find it unfair, but people who consider the future of the nation under six more years of GMA see six more years of Mike Arroyo – a prospect that makes people shudder and join the FPJ camp.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson may be trailing in the presidential polls, but he inflicted untold damage on candidate GMA with his exposé on Jose Pidal. The accusations boomeranged on Lacson, but there has been no closure to the case and the seeds of doubt are still embedded in the public’s mind.
The First Gentleman, who has stayed out of sight since the President announced her candidacy, has re-emerged in the public consciousness, once again in an unflattering light. A picture can paint a thousand words, and that shot of Mike Arroyo with one of the Fornier brothers cannot easily be dispelled by Malacañang’s statements about a "third party" trying to drive a wedge between the President and FPJ’s camp.
But who ever heeded Santayana in this country? Come May 10, Filipinos are in for yet another electoral exercise that will lead to nothing but more of the same old faces, same old politics.