Battle for the hearts and minds of the people

Having covered former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at Malacañang Palace, I have never known her as someone who wants to be fussed over with. While she is not much into how she looks in public, the President Arroyo I covered at the Palace from January 2001 to February 2005 did not wish to be seen as a softie or show any sign of being weak. That’s why she projected the image of “taray” to the hilt.

That tough image was totally erased when she showed up in public wearing a medical contraption and a mask. She has visibly lost so much weight after undergoing three spine surgeries one after the other this year. This was the sight of Mrs. Arroyo the public saw last Tuesday night at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 when she came out of an ambulance while being assisted and made to sit on a wheelchair.

She was accompanied by her husband, former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, and their son, party-list Representative Mikey Arroyo, House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, and several former Arroyo Cabinet officials still loyal to her. The former President was at the NAIA a few hours after the Supreme Court (SC) issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the couple’s inclusion in a watch-list order of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

It turned out that Mrs. Arroyo and her husband Mike had already booked flights out of the country that day, expecting a favorable decision from the SC on their separate petitions. The 15-man High Court headed by Chief Justice Antonio Corona handed down a majority decision, 8-5, in favor of the Arroyos’ petitions that were consolidated into one.

As soon as the SC handed down the TRO, the Arroyos immediately coughed up the P2-million cash bond required from them along with two other conditions set by the SC. Complying with the High Court conditions was sort of guarantee of their return to the Philippines to face the charges of alleged plunder, graft and poll fraud that have yet to be filed against them before the courts.

The hasty payment of the cash bond also betrayed the Arroyos’ attempt to picture themselves as ordinary citizens because no plain folks like me could produce P2 million within such a short notice.

For what it’s worth, I think this high-profile drama at the NAIA should be reason enough to believe the public avowals of the former first couple that they would return and face their legal obligations here. They could have surreptitiously left the country like the way Senator Panfilo Lacson did last year when he quietly slipped purportedly out of NAIA to evade the service of a warrant of arrest issued against him by a Manila regional trial court on the Dacer-Corbito double murder case.

Or perhaps compare this to the more recent “escape” of Ramona Bautista, daughter of former Sen. Ramon Revilla Sr. who was tagged in the murder of her brother, actor Ramgen Revilla. She fled to Turkey via Hong Kong and passed through normal immigration and Customs check at the same NAIA terminal. Garbed in a red shawl that made her look like Little Red Riding Hood, she successfully eluded NAIA authorities from stopping her flight from justice.  

At the risk of sounding cruel and heartless, I suspect that the NAIA spectacle was aimed at eliciting public sympathy for Mrs. Arroyo. The whole drama was apparently laid out by the political strategists of Mrs. Arroyo and achieved their goal, they did.

The Arroyo couple’s battery of lawyers led by veteran legal eagle Estelito Mendoza have their jobs cut easier by the calculated risks taken by this political maneuver. They got the desired effect of putting the administration of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III at the defensive mode instead.

Unfortunately, Aquino administration officials led by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda fell for it. Sadly, they failed to protect P-Noy from the blitzkrieg of the Arroyo camp. P-Noy reportedly called for an emergency Cabinet meeting at the Palace that night. The next day, Cabinet officials were all over the place and giving media interviews as they circled the wagon for the embattled P-Noy administration, albeit belatedly.

To make matters worse, the Justice Secretary spoke arrogantly after the SC handed down the TRO. De Lima went straight to the Palace to hold a press conference with Lacierda. Speaking as alter ego of P-Noy, she ordered immigration and airport authorities not to allow the Arroyo couple from boarding any plane out of the Philippines.

I was waiting, and in fact expecting her to say the usual or standard line of the government: “We will abide by the court ruling.” And immediately add the condition: “BUT we have to get first a copy of the TRO before we could comply with it.”

That would have been a more circumspect statement to an adverse ruling on the government. Incidentally, De Lima left her DOJ office in Padre Faura, which is located just beside the SC, to perfectly have a valid reason not to be around if served with a copy of the TRO.

Lawyers from both camps can argue the legal points to death. But legalese alone would not serve the national interest if the rule of law is not obeyed and followed by lawyers and other officers of the court like the Justice Secretary.

The Department of Justice should expedite the filing of plunder and electoral sabotage cases against Mrs. Arroyo if only to highlight the government’s commitment to the rule of law. The immediate filing of cases against the ex-President is necessary in order to prevent her from escaping prosecution. Her lawyers are obviously using her medical condition to frustrate our judicial processes.

Yes, we agree to P-Noy’s declaration that justice must be served at all cost. But it must be tempered by compassion in extraordinary circumstances. With amateurs handling crisis situations surrounding P-Noy, the Aquino administration becomes the abuser of power before the eyes of the public.

But attempts to make it appear that Mrs. Arroyo is in a life-and-death situation at this point are obviously too contrived, if not desperate. She is very sick, no doubt about that. But she does not have a life-threatening condition, as vouched by no less than her attending doctors who are barred though by patient-doctor confidentiality to enter into this battle for the hearts and minds of the people.