is time on arroyo's side?

TIME IS EITHER AN ENEMY OR AN ALLY of the embattled government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Although the economy has enjoyed unprecedented growth during the past 30 years, hitting 7.3 percent in 2007, the biggest expansion took place during the past two years, breaking past the 4.6 percent average growth rate in 2001-2006. This article does not intend to establish the relationship between economic growth and political turbulence. A recent study by the Asian Development Bank examined the link between corruption and political instability and decline in investment growth. The paper found that governance concerns are one of the “critical constraints to private investment and growth in the Philippines.” Basically the question boils down to this: has “political noise” become less of a force in generating political instability and reached its peak? According to this argument, “people are tired of politics of division and despair.” This argument ignores the question, voiced by people outside Malacañang, which Palace insiders do not want to ask or to face: Are people not getting tired of the President? The public gets tired of congressional investigations but they get tired, too, of the reproduction of scandals at every congressional investigation. The argument that people are “tired” of scandals rests on flimsy grounds. Are more and more people not getting tired of President Arroyo rather than of the scandals?

mistake #8

beyond truth


With an inspired sense of timing, the Catholic bishops who together constitute the Ecclesiastical Province of Manila (who knew there was such a thing?) issued a special pastoral letter reflecting on the national shame of corruption in order to mark Palm Sunday—the start of the holiest days in the Christian calendar. What did the 16 bishops (including Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and Bishop Leopoldo Tumulak of the Military Ordinariate) wish to impress upon the faithful? The CBCP called it a “crisis of truth.” The 16 bishops describe the national situation in somewhat less elegant terms: “Today,” their letter begins, “we are experiencing a social and political mess.” But the 16 bishops of the Manila province see the “mess” differently. Corruption is [worse] than lies, because lies are employed only to cover it.” The 16 bishops then repair to the oldest moral code available to the faithful, the Ten Commandments. The pastoral letter picks up the narrative, to point out that the Filipino’s liberation from “Egypt” must be followed by time spent in the “desert.”

un-holy week

Here's an unequivocal sign of the times: Even on the holiest days of the Christian calendar, political thoughts continue to intrude. Only last Sunday, a group of 16 bishops from the Metropolitan Ecclesiastical Province of Manila issued another pastoral letter. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has assured the public that, while prices are indeed rising, supply remains adequate. But it is a measure of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's legitimacy crisis that Yap himself faces a credibility test. To be sure, public skepticism is also fueled by turmoil in the global markets; oil prices have reached an all-time high, the dollar is under severe strain, the prospect of corporate failures is unsettlingly high. But on top of all these, the administration's credibility problem at a time of serious allegations of corruption and betrayal of public trust is a grave concern. Questions like these interfere with the faithful Holy Week reflections.

a quarrel among thieves

SO MUCH HAS BEEN SAID for the last six months about the NBN (the National Broadband Network project) controversy. It started with Joey de Venecia, the soured loser and turned whistleblower, testified about the President’s husband Jose Miguel Arroyo’s alleged involvement in the overpriced project. What we want now from the ongoing Senate inquiry into the NBN scandal and the role of the Chinese firm ZTE played in it has evolved. From a passing interest in the details of what Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago characterized as a quarrel among thieves, to an enthusiastic kibitzer, we now want to discover what President Macapagal-Arroyo knew, and when she knew it. Let’s try this for a change. We would live backwards to some six months ago and see how much we make sense of the recent events…

Mar. 6, Tuesday -- in aid of transparency

It took some time for a waiting public to sense the full shape of the Supreme Court’s compromise proposal in Romulo Neri’s executive privilege case. Essentially, what the Court did was to: a) recognize its limits and b) recognize the public clamor for transparency and truth in the NBN controversy. It is the public’s responsibility to accept the Supreme Court’s limits too. The compromise allows the Senate to immediately summon Neri back to the witnesses’ panel. In the court of public opinion, Neri has no more room to hedge.

Feb. 16, Sunday -- forked tongue

When president macapagal-arroyo went before the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC) and Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap) last Friday, she said early on in her speech: “We take the ZTE issue very seriously.” Mrs. Macapagal cancelled the deal amid the uproar.”

Perhaps the President’s idea of a fight is shadow boxing?

How independent? Then just as the President began to try to salvage the situation, the Ombudsman suddenly rose from her previous lethargy on the issues of high-level corruption. Defensively. The Ombudsman then issued a flood of subpoenas coincidentally timed with the Senate’s resumption of hearings on Monday. For monitoring traffic, the police said; for a transparent investigation, the Ombudsman says. And then, the President said, “I have given clearance to the secretary of justice to investigate those implicated who are not within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.” Invoking the right against self-incrimination?

In conclusion, the President went on to emphasize the elaborate choreography of the shadow boxing: “I trust that the Ombudsman will investigate this issue thoroughly and I trust that she will ensure a transparent process in doing so. Switik.

-- ‘bring it on’

Friday, Makati City saw, once more, the face of mobilization; Sunday, La Salle Greenhills will be the focus of prayers. As a result, the public, hemmed in by shrill voices on all sides, knowing that in the wings wait forces that know no limits, feel utterly powerless, completely devoid of options. But the options are there. The individual citizen, unsure of what collective action to pursue, can find his or her bearings by means of resolving individual action. Let the government authorize its officials to freely testify without the prior restraint of hiding behind the President’s skirt of authority. Let critics of the powers-that-be prove to us, the people, that they can forsake ambition in pursuit of the public interest; that they will undertake, not a cosmetic change, but a genuine change involving the sacrifice, if need be, of their own privileges and power. The Filipino people have the ultimate power, which is to judge. To insist on that is what renders wrongdoers powerless.

Feb. 15, Friday -- Checkmated bishops

If the administration has become a constitutional wrecking crew, then what should people of conscience do? Right after nuns and other religious bravely shielded Lozada from the talons of the state, all that the bishops did was to hail Lozada, saying he could save the government from “scandalous and immoral kickbacks.” By now the bishops should have appreciated that the ZTE issue, more than just another instance of corruption, is an episode in a vast tapestry of abuse of power, constitutional deception and subversion -- a stark evil right in the corridors of power. But still the bishops hem and haw, even deny they have the duty to lead the people. An instance of this is Bishop Francisco Claver’s revisionism of Jaime Cardinal Sin, the bishops and people power. Claver’s argument is platitudinous, if not misplaced. EDSA People Power I came to pass because of the activism of Sin and later, of the bishops, who kneaded the critical mass. They’ve become spiritual and moral illiterates.

Feb. 12, Tuesday -- cost of corruption

Graft and corruption has been a fact of national life since post-Liberation days. At every presidential election, one major issue that is always raised is graft and corruption. Bruce Van Voorhis, a member of the Asian Human Rights Commission, said that these aspects of the life of the nation are linked: “People are poor to a large extent because of widespread corruption; those who wield political power violate people’s rights to attain and maintain that power; a lack of judicial punishment in the courts ensures impunity that permits corruption and human rights violations to continue. Corruption retards economic and social development, lowers the quality of public services and infrastructure and raises the prices of goods and services. Graft and corruption flourishes because of the culture of impunity. Have you heard of any big fish being convicted of corruption and plunder, except deposed president Joseph Estrada? Graft and corruption has become so ingrained in the national life that it is considered “normal.” Even people like Lozada are ready to consider a 20-percent “commission” on government deals acceptable.

Feb. 11, Monday -- pinoy’s big brother

The interception of Lozada’s messages is shocking partly because it seems right out of the movies. But Lozada, a self-styled information technology expert, confirmed that it was indeed possible to eavesdrop, so to speak, on other people’s text messages in real time. Consider what we have learned from Lozada’s vivid if at times redundant testimony: Abalos had the conversations of Lozada and former socio-economic planning secretary Romulo Neri monitored -- apparently the work of Military Intelligence Group 17, Lozada said. Lozada’s cellphones were tapped -- at the exact time his erstwhile superior told him his armed custodians were on his side. Non-civilian authorities -- Lozada thinks it could be the Presidential Security Group -- easily out-maneuvered the Senate’s own agents, the media’s inquisitive reporters, even the relatives of Lozada who supposedly requested for protection in the first place, by spiriting Lozada out of the airport in a matter of minutes.

Feb. 10, Sunday -- ‘crying lady’

We’ve heard that President Macapagal-Arroyo and her family like to feast on cocido on Sundays. For all their Old Society pretensions, they are proving themselves irredeemably politically uncouth and old-fashioned. Sociologist Randy David said it best, yesterday: “The old values that used to mitigate the oppressiveness of feudal power—self-restraint, the value of friendship, loyalty, word of honor, etc.—are fading away. What is replacing the grip of Old World politics, however, is not the ethical professionalism of modern politics but the sheer rapaciousness of the parvenus of present-day Philippine politics.” Sergio Apostol, to name just one noxious example, earned his keep as chief presidential legal counsel by acting macho—calling Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. a “crying lady”—and then slandering everyone of Chinese extraction. “Bagay sa iyo i-deport ka. Magulo ka dito” (You should be deported because you’re troublesome). Which is why, last Friday, as a week of administration bungling brought forth a new star witness in the controversial NBN-ZTE deal, administration senators made themselves scarce.

Feb. 9, Saturday – ‘moderate their greed’

Lozada, an engineer by training whom Neri tapped as a consultant in the project intended to link all units of government under one telecommunications network, said the NBN was originally intended to be undertaken under a build-operate-transfer scheme. Amsterdam Holdings Inc., a firm owned by Jose de Venecia III, submitted an unsolicited proposal to undertake the project. Lozada came up with what he thought to be a “win-win solution”: Let Amsterdam Holdings undertake the project, with ZTE as its supplier. Enter First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo. De Venecia was cut off the deal. Lozada, whose long association with Neri allowed him to see a number of big government contracts being negotiated, said the NBN deal was but one example of how the “dysfunctional government procurement system” worked. Lozada hinted that he might not have objected if Abalos and his associates had scaled down their commission to about 20 percent. Lozada is lucky he is still alive after his abduction.

Feb. 7, Thursday -- believing Lozada

Various Palace spokespersons called the Senate witness on the ZTE scandal a liar, and his emotional press conference a tissue of convenient lies. Does anyone in Malacañang actually think there was anything convenient in the course Lozada chose? What does a man like Lozada, who is not independently wealthy, who holds no political power; stand to gain from taking on Malacañang? It is striking that Lozada took pains to give a nuanced explanation for signing that second affidavit. Lozada could have easily said he had signed the second affidavit against his will. Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza, Lozada’s erstwhile boss, maintained that Lozada had gone through the immigration and customs counters upon arrival from Hong Kong. Philippine National Police Director General Avelino Razon alleged that Lozada was brought immediately to La Salle Greenhills. But Lozada said he was in fact taken for a long ride to Laguna province, before media interest and public curiosity forced his custodians to return to Metro Manila. Deputy Presidential Spokesman Anthony Golez scored the inconsistency in Lozada’s explanation of the second affidavit. Malacañang’s full-court press gives the game away.