Then and now September 21, 2006
Is Arroyo another Marcos?
Good question to ask today, the 34th anniversary of martial law, and the year Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo unleashed 1017 and other martial law-like edicts. My answer to it is yes and no. But lest readers take comfort in that answer, the “no” there is an even greater source of dread.
The yes is patent. Arroyo is another Marcos in many respects.
Marcos became an illegitimate ruler after September 1972, ruling without the mandate of the people. Arroyo became an illegitimate ruler after May 2004, ruling without the mandate of the people. However she twists in the wind, Arroyo will never be able to escape the ghost of the “Hello Garci” tapes. Her allies in the House of Representatives may refuse to accept that as evidence to impeach her, but the public will always find in it a reason to revile her.
Marcos wanted to rule forever, Arroyo wants to rule forever. Not quite incidentally, Marcos also tried to circumvent the ban against a third presidential term by bribing the Constitutional Convention to shift the form of government from presidential to parliamentary. His plot was foiled by an honest old man named Eduardo Quintero who exposed the bribe. His legal avenues closed to him, Marcos took the illegal route of declaring martial law.
The Cha-cha (charter change) prospers, and Arroyo can rule after 2010 by becoming prime minister. Of course, Jose de Venecia thinks he will be it, but he has always been horribly deluded. Of course, too, the transitory provisions say Arroyo can only name the prime minister and not be it, but the last elections also say Fernando Poe Jr. and not Arroyo won, and she has been it. Indeed, the whole trajectory of Arroyo’s rule suggests she does not mean to give up power ever. The scale of the killings, which opens her up at the very least to legal retribution from her victims in the form of a class suit not unlike the one the martial-law torture victims lodged (successfully) against Marcos and at the very most to physical reprisal, must suggest so.
Marcos ruled by force, Arroyo rules by force. That follows from the fact that both were/are illegitimate. The only way to maintain illegitimate rule is by force. Marcos unleashed a scale of killings unprecedented in postwar Philippine history, Arroyo has launched a scale of killings unprecedented since Marcos. The object of the killings then as now is the same: to wipe out opposition from the face of the earth. The only difference is that Arroyo does so indirectly, by sending a chilling message to critics via her death warrant on the New People’s Army.
Marcos was obsessed with power and broke all the rules to get what he wanted, Arroyo is obsessed with power and is breaking all the rules to get what she wants. Both lied through their teeth. Lying was Marcos’ favorite pastime, too. When I was writing the book on martial law, I toyed with the idea of titling it “Lying in State,” but my publishers thought it either misleading or grim. But that was what Marcos did more than anything else: he lied relentlessly about matters of state.
He even lied about the date of the proclamation of martial law. Martial law was not declared on September 21, 1972, which was a Thursday, it was declared the following day, Sept. 22, which was a Friday. Or technically, since it was declared at midnight, on September 23, Saturday. The choice of a weekend was to prevent the students from greeting it with rallies. But Marcos being superstitious (for some reason, dictators are prone to that), regarding the number 7 and its multiples as lucky for him, he officially declared the 21st as the proclamation date. Thenceforth the country celebrated every September 21 as “Thanksgiving Day,” an even more monstrous, and cruelly ironic, lie.
Two things however are different between Marcos and Arroyo, between then and now.
The first is that Marcos was elected president twice before he contemplated dictatorship, Arroyo was never elected before she contemplated dictatorship. That is no mean difference; its implications are enormous. Lest we forget (though many of us have already done so), Arroyo came to power on the wings of people power. The betrayal in her case is mind-boggling. For a beneficiary of a cause that ended dictatorship to be the very instrument that brought it back -- it is unspeakable. Indeed, for a beneficiary of people power to be the very instrument of the methodical extirpation of people power -- it is obscenity itself.
The practical implication of that is simply that if someone has the gall to do it, what can she possibly balk at? Marcos’ instincts, honed from winning a couple of presidential elections, were to try to get around the law, which he did at every turn. Arroyo’s instincts, developed from betraying the very thing that brought her to power, are to scorn the law altogether, which she does at every turn. Between the two, Arroyo is the one less likely to be deterred by rules and constraints, human or divine.
The second difference, and one thing we truly ought to be scared about, is that then the populace hated Marcos but was deterred from taking to the streets to oust him by the bayonets of martial law. Today, the populace hates Arroyo but is deterred from taking to the streets by the paralyzing effects of indifference, political fatigue, cynicism and despair -- call it what you will. Then the people overcame their fear of the bayonets and rose together in a resplendent act of heroism at Edsa. Will the people today cut through the barbed wire strung around their hearts to do the same?
Abangan ang susunod na kabanata (Wait for the next chapter).
* * *
D-Day: Today is the kickoff gig for the “Stop the Killings!” bar tour at 70s Bistro, 46 Anonas St., Quezon City. Bands playing: The Dawn, The Jerks, Sandwich, Sugarfree, Brownman Revival and Radioactive Sago. I’ll announce the rest of the schedule over the coming weeks.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=22169
Good question to ask today, the 34th anniversary of martial law, and the year Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo unleashed 1017 and other martial law-like edicts. My answer to it is yes and no. But lest readers take comfort in that answer, the “no” there is an even greater source of dread.
The yes is patent. Arroyo is another Marcos in many respects.
Marcos became an illegitimate ruler after September 1972, ruling without the mandate of the people. Arroyo became an illegitimate ruler after May 2004, ruling without the mandate of the people. However she twists in the wind, Arroyo will never be able to escape the ghost of the “Hello Garci” tapes. Her allies in the House of Representatives may refuse to accept that as evidence to impeach her, but the public will always find in it a reason to revile her.
Marcos wanted to rule forever, Arroyo wants to rule forever. Not quite incidentally, Marcos also tried to circumvent the ban against a third presidential term by bribing the Constitutional Convention to shift the form of government from presidential to parliamentary. His plot was foiled by an honest old man named Eduardo Quintero who exposed the bribe. His legal avenues closed to him, Marcos took the illegal route of declaring martial law.
The Cha-cha (charter change) prospers, and Arroyo can rule after 2010 by becoming prime minister. Of course, Jose de Venecia thinks he will be it, but he has always been horribly deluded. Of course, too, the transitory provisions say Arroyo can only name the prime minister and not be it, but the last elections also say Fernando Poe Jr. and not Arroyo won, and she has been it. Indeed, the whole trajectory of Arroyo’s rule suggests she does not mean to give up power ever. The scale of the killings, which opens her up at the very least to legal retribution from her victims in the form of a class suit not unlike the one the martial-law torture victims lodged (successfully) against Marcos and at the very most to physical reprisal, must suggest so.
Marcos ruled by force, Arroyo rules by force. That follows from the fact that both were/are illegitimate. The only way to maintain illegitimate rule is by force. Marcos unleashed a scale of killings unprecedented in postwar Philippine history, Arroyo has launched a scale of killings unprecedented since Marcos. The object of the killings then as now is the same: to wipe out opposition from the face of the earth. The only difference is that Arroyo does so indirectly, by sending a chilling message to critics via her death warrant on the New People’s Army.
Marcos was obsessed with power and broke all the rules to get what he wanted, Arroyo is obsessed with power and is breaking all the rules to get what she wants. Both lied through their teeth. Lying was Marcos’ favorite pastime, too. When I was writing the book on martial law, I toyed with the idea of titling it “Lying in State,” but my publishers thought it either misleading or grim. But that was what Marcos did more than anything else: he lied relentlessly about matters of state.
He even lied about the date of the proclamation of martial law. Martial law was not declared on September 21, 1972, which was a Thursday, it was declared the following day, Sept. 22, which was a Friday. Or technically, since it was declared at midnight, on September 23, Saturday. The choice of a weekend was to prevent the students from greeting it with rallies. But Marcos being superstitious (for some reason, dictators are prone to that), regarding the number 7 and its multiples as lucky for him, he officially declared the 21st as the proclamation date. Thenceforth the country celebrated every September 21 as “Thanksgiving Day,” an even more monstrous, and cruelly ironic, lie.
Two things however are different between Marcos and Arroyo, between then and now.
The first is that Marcos was elected president twice before he contemplated dictatorship, Arroyo was never elected before she contemplated dictatorship. That is no mean difference; its implications are enormous. Lest we forget (though many of us have already done so), Arroyo came to power on the wings of people power. The betrayal in her case is mind-boggling. For a beneficiary of a cause that ended dictatorship to be the very instrument that brought it back -- it is unspeakable. Indeed, for a beneficiary of people power to be the very instrument of the methodical extirpation of people power -- it is obscenity itself.
The practical implication of that is simply that if someone has the gall to do it, what can she possibly balk at? Marcos’ instincts, honed from winning a couple of presidential elections, were to try to get around the law, which he did at every turn. Arroyo’s instincts, developed from betraying the very thing that brought her to power, are to scorn the law altogether, which she does at every turn. Between the two, Arroyo is the one less likely to be deterred by rules and constraints, human or divine.
The second difference, and one thing we truly ought to be scared about, is that then the populace hated Marcos but was deterred from taking to the streets to oust him by the bayonets of martial law. Today, the populace hates Arroyo but is deterred from taking to the streets by the paralyzing effects of indifference, political fatigue, cynicism and despair -- call it what you will. Then the people overcame their fear of the bayonets and rose together in a resplendent act of heroism at Edsa. Will the people today cut through the barbed wire strung around their hearts to do the same?
Abangan ang susunod na kabanata (Wait for the next chapter).
* * *
D-Day: Today is the kickoff gig for the “Stop the Killings!” bar tour at 70s Bistro, 46 Anonas St., Quezon City. Bands playing: The Dawn, The Jerks, Sandwich, Sugarfree, Brownman Revival and Radioactive Sago. I’ll announce the rest of the schedule over the coming weeks.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=22169
posted by dqfan06 @ 9:55 AM
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