Beyond

Is it at all possible to look beyond the present controversy hounding the Macapagal-Arroyo administration?

The controversy – initially over jueteng payoffs and then over audiotapes that suggest, at the very least, indiscretion at the highest levels – has begun to resemble a complex telenovela. It began as a rather typical he said/she said scandal, progressed into the serious business of illegal wiretaps, built some suspense with that ultimately comic Sammy Ong episode and, most recently, took an improbable turn with that improbably named Agent Doble.

If, in the previous people power episodes, we had a Cardinal Sin, this time around all we have is an Agent Doble. This brings a rather sinking feeling.

This whole run was spiced with warnings of yet another people power-type rising, suggestions of impending impeachment, rather illogical calls for the resignation of both the President and her Vice-President and murmurs about a coup attempt in the offing.

The last few days, the whole nation was taken for a coaster ride. There were unsettling moments and troubling questions that will continue to hound us. There are serious ethical issues that will need to be addressed fully. There are complex political problems that will have to be resolved somehow – even if satisfactory answers evade us at the moment.

In the confusion, it is tempting to seek sanctuary in formulaic moral indignation or simplistic self-righteousness: if there is the slightest indication she cheated, she must go; if corruption persists, nothing has changed; fiat justicia, pereat mundum (achieve justice even if the world perishes).

But the controversy, and the issues raised along the way, present us not with black-and-white options but with large swaths of gray. As this episode moves apace, events overtake our ethical contemplations. The frailties of all sides and imperfection of all options make choices difficult.

Reputations have been freely tainted in the name of free speech and the capacity of our leaders to govern has been undermined in the name of democracy. There is reason to fear, however, that the biggest damage will, in the end, be sustained not by individuals but by institutions.

In which case, the damage will be difficult to repair. When citizens become thoroughly disillusioned, they tend to disaffiliate. They tend to recoil from the arena of civic engagement. They will cultivate a deep cynicism for any leader and all institutions that will be difficult to heal.

Some people have described the apparent lack of outrage as "people power fatigue." But it could be more than that. It could be an intentionally cultivated apathy: a deep disdain for the sphere of the political and a hopelessness in the possibility of authentic leadership.

Cynical leaders are cursed with cynical followers. That is the law of history. It is ultimately a curse that takes its toll on the entire political community.

I am attracted to the phrase used by one observer of the ironies of our politics: we are in a volatile stalemate.

The President will not resign – and indeed there is not enough ground for her to do so even as her opponents try to lure all of us to take a dogmatic view of it all. An impeachment initiative is untenable and will likely be quashed at the House. A coup attempt will bring blood to the streets and will be very likely smashed by sheer public apathy which favors the status quo. In which case, such an adventure will only make the stalemate more grinding.

No amount of legalistic hair-splitting about the judicial acceptability of illegally acquired evidence will arrest the drift towards more profound public cynicism. That cynicism will eat into our institutional order like a truly malevolent cancer.

This controversy might soon be forgotten. But the mistrust it nurtured – a deep mistrust for any leader and for all institutions – will remain like an ugly scar on our political culture.

No matter where this melodrama takes us, it is clear the President has been politically damaged by this episode of controversy. Already burdened with the necessity to make tough unpopular decisions and a record low job approval rating, the controversy has diminished her credibility and that vital moral ascendancy required for effective presidential leadership.

In this political low point, it is easy to imagine that there can only be two possible outcomes: bad and worse.

If this controversy just goes on and on, we could end up with another failed presidency and an open door to a long episode of chaos that torpedoes all the gains we have so far accomplished.

Shortly after Estrada was deposed, one acute observer of Filipino politics predicted that every other presidency will fail. It is not the appropriate institution for the challenges our society needs to confront.

That prediction is probably astute. But changing the architecture of our institutions has proven to be as futile as making the existing set-up work. We have never managed to consensus for either.

If this controversy fizzles out just short of the brink, either from sheer lack of merit in the evidence to push it any further or from competent damage control or from simply the absolute lack of any other viable option, we will still end up with a seriously damaged presidency. It will be a lameduck presidency trying to buy survival at every turn by pandering to every rising demand, every vested interest, every populist clamor.

In which case, it will be a permeable presidency: one without the political capital required to rehabilitate our institutions and clean up the fiscal mess. Therefore one that, because it needs to pander to every demand and please every constituency, will probably end up aggravating the fiscal crisis and setting the stage for a debt debacle further down the road.

Either outcome is pretty dire.

The only possibility for averting either outcome is for the President to suddenly rise above herself, become a compelling leader of reforms, an overpowering builder of consensus, a compelling guide to a better national future.

Such an outcome will have to defy the odds.