Repercussions November 14, 2006

DÉJÀ VU. I remember that in the 1970s and early 1980s, this country followed the American elections with watchful eyes. The martial-law government, in particular, which earnestly hoped for a Republican American president. Ferdinand Marcos himself was rumored to be a donor to the Republican kitty. The reason was that a Republican administration could always be expected to turn a blind eye to the oppressions of martial law. Lest we forget (though I suspect most of us already have), George W's father, Bush the elder, toasted Marcos' "adherence to democracy" when he visited here, a thing the rest of the world, including most Filipinos, couldn't see.

Jimmy Carter's administration didn't particularly sit well with the martial law government, especially since it gave human rights pride of place in its diplomatic policy, which made life miserable for Marcos. There was much jubilation in Malacañang when Ronald Reagan finally won. It assured US support for the continuation of iron-fisted rule, an expectation Reagan lived up to. Up till the twilight of martial law, Reagan and his Heritage people believed in keeping Marcos, arguing that he was still part of the solution.

I don't know how Malacañang received the crushing rejection of George W. Bush by the American people. I can't imagine Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was elated. It wasn't a presidential election, but it might as well have been one.

The immediate implication of the Democratic victory for this country is that the new government in America might not look too kindly on the killings here. I got an insight into that recently when my media friends in Chicago e-mailed me some of their discussions there. Many of them had picked up my call for stopping the killings in the Philippines, even proposing to lobby the US government in that wise, but they got this cautionary advice from a fellow Filipino-American, Jose Caedo:

"John Negroponte, the secretary of homeland security, was chief of the US anticommunist operations in Costa Rica. Take that alongside the Bush administration's anti-terrorist agenda in the Philippines, and (you have a problem). With a Republican majority in Congress, which just passed the wiretapping law, it is doubtful you can get anything from them, despite all the cries from human rights and church groups. But if you can have a Democratic majority in Congress this November, you may just have a change for the better."

That was more than a month ago. And that is exactly what has happened. You do not just have a Democratic majority in the House, you have a Democratic majority in the Senate, too. Now is the best time to draw the US government's attention to the merciless killings in this country, the likes of which have not been seen since Marcos -- or maybe not since the World War II, since Marcos limited the killings largely to combatants, not to journalists, NGO workers and bishops of the Philippine Independent Church. That is especially so since the next speaker of the House is expected to be Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to become so in the US. Pelosi is a staunch liberal and a firm believer in human rights and civil liberties. She was one of Marcos' fiercest critics because of the wanton killings, and she is likely to become one of Arroyo's fiercest critics for exactly the same reason. To this day, she wants China to face up to the Tienanmen massacre.

Truly, there's much reason to bring out the champagne.

But there's bad news, too, which ironically owes to the good news. The good news is that the issue in the last American elections was first and last George W. Bush and the American voters voted to reject him. That is going to be the case as well with our elections next year: The issue will be Arroyo, first and last, and this country's voters will reject her. But only so theoretically. Because there is one fundamental difference between the American elections and ours: Cheating is insignificant there, it is decisive here.

The quality of the opposition notwithstanding, I have little doubt that the administration candidates will lose big the way they lost big in 1971 after the Plaza Miranda bombing, when Ferdinand Marcos also became the issue in the senatorial elections. I have little doubt the senatorial elections next year, like the senatorial elections in 1971 and like the senatorial elections in the US last week, will bring out the best in Filipino voters: They will not vote on the basis of self-interest, they will vote on the basis of principle. I have little doubt the voters will reject Arroyo, in the same way that the American voters rejected Bush, by turning the elections into their political graveyard.

But there's the big rub. I have little doubt as well that Arroyo and cabal will cheat the hell out of the voters again. Given the writing on the wall, they are not going to slink away, gnash their teeth, and weep. They are going to brazen it out and cheat. They are going to use the "superior machinery" that Gabriel Claudio talks about to wreak that deed. The only way the administration can stop a massacre in next year's polls is to add the wholesale killing of votes to the wholesale killing of journalists and activists. The lesson of the elections in the US cannot be lost on them.

Unless we, the people, move to stop it. Never mind vigilance, just get incensed. Never mind taking to the streets, just get furious. People who see no opposition to wrongdoing will do wrong. People who get away with murder will murder. People who see slaves will be tyrants.

The Americans have already freed themselves from Bush. It's time we did so as well from his karmic Little Sister across the seas.

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Don't forget: Tonight, the Stop the Killings Bar Tour stops at Pier 1, Gil Puyat Avenue corner Roxas Boulevard, in front of World Trade Center. Cynthia Alexander, Color It Red, Paolo Santos and Pido will play. Show starts at 9:00 p.m.

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