Still, snap Gloria June 29, 2006

MEMBERS of the Black and White Movement should really stop muddling things by being there all the time and making it appear as though the citizens’ initiative to impeach Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is their initiative. You would imagine from the way they keep invading the activities devoted to it that it is their brainchild. They should stop usurping things. It makes them look like their former boss.

The issue, in any case, is black-and-white, they shouldn’t make it gray. The one thing I’m still waiting for Dinky Soliman and company to say is that Arroyo should resign or be ousted because she cheated in the elections. They’ve said a mouthful of things about why she should resign, but they have yet to say that.

When they left Arroyo’s government last year, all they said was that Arroyo had lost the trust of the people. All they said was that Arroyo was no longer accepted by the people. That is opinion. Why on earth should Arroyo resign because of their opinion? When in fact the clearest and most obdurately compelling reason for why Arroyo should resign was staring them right in the face: that is, that she cheated in the elections. That is not opinion, that is fact. That is truth etched in tablet, or in the obdurately compelling form of Arroyo’s DNA-imprinted languorously raspy voice saying “Hello, Garci.”

Dinky and company continue to say a mouthful about why Arroyo should resign -- or be impeached -- but they have yet to say because she stole the vote. I leave them to say why they cannot say that.

I’m all for the citizens’ initiative for impeaching Arroyo. The lawyers and politicians, who are often one and the same and to be found plentifully in the camp that pays money will, of course, scoff at it and say it has weak legal and legislative legs to stand on, if any. But clearly the matter has gone beyond the court of law (or of Congress) and landed squarely in the court of public opinion. The first has a “buy-able” judge, notably the congressmen, who stand to rule on the merit of impeachment; while the second has an incorruptible one, notably the public whose will has been known to move mountains and remove molehills.

I do wish, however, that the citizens-impeachers would emphasize one thing above all others. I do wish that the citizens-impeachers would put in black-and-white ahead of all items in their charge sheet one thing. That is the fact that Arroyo cheated in the elections. It is not that she has lost the public trust, it is not that she has become a dictator, it is not that she has caused the slaughter of the innocents or committed crimes against humanity. It is that she stole the vote, it is that she is not the rightful president, it is that she is ruling this country without the voters’ mandate.

That is the fountainhead of the iniquity. Everything flows from there. The loss of public trust comes from it, the recourse to dictatorial methods comes from it, the murderousness and viciousness come from it. Everything else is subordinate to it.

I do wish, as my one other caveat, that the citizens-impeachers would launch an accompanying campaign for snap elections. The one goes with the other. In the past, calls for the impeachment of Arroyo have run up against the question, trotted out by her supporters, “But whom do we replace her with?” A ridiculous question doubtless -- proposing as it does that anyone may seize the reins of government and keep them for as long as there is no immediate “alternative” -- but unfortunately one that has not fallen on deaf ears. Arroyo herself is the best argument for it, demonstrating as she does that removing a bad leader can produce worse. Noli de Castro is second.

The answer is snap elections. It preempts or voids the question “But whom do we replace her with?” that’s bound to be raised again against impeachment. The answer to illegitimacy is legitimacy. The answer to a leader who did not win the elections is a President who won an election. The answer to who to replace Arroyo with is who the voters want to replace her with. That’s what democracy is. As I’ve argued repeatedly, the most obvious legal argument for snap elections rather than for succession is that the presidency isn’t being vacated by illness or incapacity, it has never been occupied. An impeachment initiative that says first and foremost that Arroyo stole the vote presumes that.

As I’ve learned over time, however, what makes the wisdom of snap elections hard to grasp for many people is the misconception that they can happen only once Arroyo resigns or is ousted. That isn’t so at all, and that has to be said again and again.

A snap election does not happen after Arroyo leaves, it happens before Arroyo leaves. It is not the effect of Arroyo leaving, it is the cause of Arroyo leaving. It is a way, a means, an instrument, a tool, a weapon, a crowbar to pry Arroyo loose from a position she is clinging to like glue, or like Ate Glue, illegally. Or at the least the call for a snap election is. That call by itself, particularly where it is made by the most representative sectors of society, by the most credible representatives of those representative sectors of society -- Cory Aquino, Archbishop Lagdameo and Cardinal Rosales, business leaders other than the equally fake Donald Duck (he has a reversible jacket, one side saying “Estrada” and the other “Arroyo”), civil society stalwarts or the ones other than those who still have to return the Peace Bonds, and so on—will be as Joshua’s trumpets tearing down the walls of tyranny like the cardboard façade of a B-movie.

Impeach Arroyo, hold snap elections to fill in the blank. The first can’t prosper without the second. Both really need just one idea to get it across to the public, and that is “Snap Gloria.” Still:

Say No to A Phony.

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