Testing politics of implosion
Pressing Arroyo to step down: Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada (L) and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim raise clenched fists during a protest programme inside a school at Manila's financial district of Makati suburban Manila on Thursday. Picture: AFP
Saturday, March 1, 2008
YESTERDAY, Feb 29, marks the climax of a weeklong test of strength between the scandal-ridden and beleaguered government of President Gloria Arroyo and coalesced opposition groups commemorating the 22nd anniversary of Edsa People Power I over whether that 1986 popular revolt, which toppled the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, has become a spent political force.
Former Philippine presidents Corazon Aquino and Joseph Estrada attended a rally in the capital's financial district of Makati City, Metro Manila yesterday where thousands of people called for the resignation of Arroyo in a colourful outpouring of placards, prayers and chants.
But it does not appear that can mount a mass action approximating that of Feb 25, 1986 and bring sufficient pressure on the President to step down or prompt the military, the police and the Cabinet and the senior bureaucracy to defect en masse, causing an implosion of the regime.
Somehow, the rally yesterday put to the test two contending issues, forced to the surface by the 22nd anniversary: the politics of explosion, triggered by a massive revival of People Power of the likes of Edsa I, and the politics of implosion, leading to the collapse of a regime caused by defection of the military and the Cabinet, two critical elements of institutional support for the regime. The military defections of February 1986 and of January 2001, plus the Cabinet resignations, triggered the disintegration of the Marcos regime and that of President Estrada in 2001.
According to DPA, Philippines' military chief General Hermogenes Esperon said the country's armed forces will continue to support democratic processes and institutions despite calls by opposition groups to support the anti-Arroyo movement.
"There is no need for us to conduct loyalty checks, we just have to look at how our men perform and you will know that we have not lost our appetite for doing work, that means they are high morale, they are sticking to their mandates," he said.
Esperon said that even if the demonstrators in the Philippine capital would swell to over a million, the armed forces will keep their allegiance to the incumbent government.
Esperon, who was implicated in allegations of massive cheating to ensure Arroyo's victory in presidential elections in 2004, decried the protesters for calling for military intervention.
"I chastise those people who would want the military to intervene," he said. "What we should have done is to strengthen the democratic institutions. If you say that we (military) must continuously intervene then we must be failing in our maturing process as a nation."
The stalemate between these two scenarios underscores the reality that the dynamics of modes of regime change have radically altered over the past two decades. Since 1986, we have had three leadership changes defined by democratic elections: in 1992 when Fidel Ramos was elected; in 1998 when Joseph Estrada was elected; and in 2004, with the election of President Arroyo. But this pattern of electoral restoration was broken by Edsa II in 2001, and from 2004, the elected Arroyo government has been threatened with extinction by a number of coup attempts and three impeachment complaints in Congress. Despite the reassertion of the electoral tradition, the Edsa People Power tradition has not been buried and is now resurrecting with renewed vitality, reinvigorated by political scandals involving alleged election rigging in 2004 and a series of corruption cases.
The reassertion of the Edsa tradition was manifested by the call of former president Corazon Aquino, icon of the Edsa I movement, for Arroyo's resignation, although she did not go so far as to advocate another mass movement to topple the regime.
Even Aquino has shed the illusion that 22 years later, Edsa I can still be harnessed for mass action. Speaking to a joint meeting of the Makati Business Club, Management Association of the Philippines and PinoyME Foundation on Tuesday, Aquino did not make a pitch for another people power uprising, to the disappointment of many people. She merely called on President Arroyo to step down, saying it was the least disruptive way out of the severe moral crisis facing the country. She said, She must give way to a credible government that could lead by example. Given our concern to protect the moral pillars of democracy, the extra-constitutional removal of the President is not an ideal we would want to aspire for.
Aquino's call for restraint was echoed by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, which in a pastoral statement on Tuesday, called on the President to allow her officials to tell the truth about the slew of allegations of corruption related to several government transactions, but fell short of demanding her resignation. Instead, the bishops urged the President to be part of the effort to seek the truth.
The coyness of Aquino and the disappointing position of the bishops restraining people power highlighted the departure from the dynamics of 1986, when Aquino rode the crest of a forceful people power movement driven by the activist archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, and the mass civilian participation in street protests in support of the military mutiny led by Marcos Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Constabulary chief, Lt Gen Fidel Ramos.
Yesterday's configuration has lost the fervour for mass action of 1986. Yesterday's movement has changed emphasis. It has shifted its cutting edge from confrontation in the streets to bringing moral pressure on government. The shift is not exerting a powerful pressure on government officials to step down. It emboldens them to stonewall.
Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
Former Philippine presidents Corazon Aquino and Joseph Estrada attended a rally in the capital's financial district of Makati City, Metro Manila yesterday where thousands of people called for the resignation of Arroyo in a colourful outpouring of placards, prayers and chants.
But it does not appear that can mount a mass action approximating that of Feb 25, 1986 and bring sufficient pressure on the President to step down or prompt the military, the police and the Cabinet and the senior bureaucracy to defect en masse, causing an implosion of the regime.
Somehow, the rally yesterday put to the test two contending issues, forced to the surface by the 22nd anniversary: the politics of explosion, triggered by a massive revival of People Power of the likes of Edsa I, and the politics of implosion, leading to the collapse of a regime caused by defection of the military and the Cabinet, two critical elements of institutional support for the regime. The military defections of February 1986 and of January 2001, plus the Cabinet resignations, triggered the disintegration of the Marcos regime and that of President Estrada in 2001.
According to DPA, Philippines' military chief General Hermogenes Esperon said the country's armed forces will continue to support democratic processes and institutions despite calls by opposition groups to support the anti-Arroyo movement.
"There is no need for us to conduct loyalty checks, we just have to look at how our men perform and you will know that we have not lost our appetite for doing work, that means they are high morale, they are sticking to their mandates," he said.
Esperon said that even if the demonstrators in the Philippine capital would swell to over a million, the armed forces will keep their allegiance to the incumbent government.
Esperon, who was implicated in allegations of massive cheating to ensure Arroyo's victory in presidential elections in 2004, decried the protesters for calling for military intervention.
"I chastise those people who would want the military to intervene," he said. "What we should have done is to strengthen the democratic institutions. If you say that we (military) must continuously intervene then we must be failing in our maturing process as a nation."
The stalemate between these two scenarios underscores the reality that the dynamics of modes of regime change have radically altered over the past two decades. Since 1986, we have had three leadership changes defined by democratic elections: in 1992 when Fidel Ramos was elected; in 1998 when Joseph Estrada was elected; and in 2004, with the election of President Arroyo. But this pattern of electoral restoration was broken by Edsa II in 2001, and from 2004, the elected Arroyo government has been threatened with extinction by a number of coup attempts and three impeachment complaints in Congress. Despite the reassertion of the electoral tradition, the Edsa People Power tradition has not been buried and is now resurrecting with renewed vitality, reinvigorated by political scandals involving alleged election rigging in 2004 and a series of corruption cases.
The reassertion of the Edsa tradition was manifested by the call of former president Corazon Aquino, icon of the Edsa I movement, for Arroyo's resignation, although she did not go so far as to advocate another mass movement to topple the regime.
Even Aquino has shed the illusion that 22 years later, Edsa I can still be harnessed for mass action. Speaking to a joint meeting of the Makati Business Club, Management Association of the Philippines and PinoyME Foundation on Tuesday, Aquino did not make a pitch for another people power uprising, to the disappointment of many people. She merely called on President Arroyo to step down, saying it was the least disruptive way out of the severe moral crisis facing the country. She said, She must give way to a credible government that could lead by example. Given our concern to protect the moral pillars of democracy, the extra-constitutional removal of the President is not an ideal we would want to aspire for.
Aquino's call for restraint was echoed by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, which in a pastoral statement on Tuesday, called on the President to allow her officials to tell the truth about the slew of allegations of corruption related to several government transactions, but fell short of demanding her resignation. Instead, the bishops urged the President to be part of the effort to seek the truth.
The coyness of Aquino and the disappointing position of the bishops restraining people power highlighted the departure from the dynamics of 1986, when Aquino rode the crest of a forceful people power movement driven by the activist archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, and the mass civilian participation in street protests in support of the military mutiny led by Marcos Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Constabulary chief, Lt Gen Fidel Ramos.
Yesterday's configuration has lost the fervour for mass action of 1986. Yesterday's movement has changed emphasis. It has shifted its cutting edge from confrontation in the streets to bringing moral pressure on government. The shift is not exerting a powerful pressure on government officials to step down. It emboldens them to stonewall.
Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
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