IPD

Joel Rocamora
Executive Director
Institute for Popular Democracy

I could have forgiven our elite politicians for rousing me from my lechon-induced holiday euphoria if they did something meaningful, useful, produced some political movement. Instead we’ve had two weeks of “what is FVR up to” headlines, all ‘sound (bytes) and fury, signifying nothing’. At the end of two weeks, we are back exactly where we were at the beginning.

We are paying too much attention to FVR. In the end, the only power FVR has comes from people believing he has power. The ‘he said, she said, who said’ brouhaha these past two weeks is an FVR production all for the purpose of  focusing attention on himself and making people believe he is a king maker. With impeccable timing, when everyone was gorging on Christmas goodies, FVR attacks NOEL [No Elections] and demands that GMA renounce it by the end of the year.

With no renunciation forthcoming, he not only meets with two key opposition leaders, he has his picture taken with them. Is FVR finally joining the opposition? Is he going to be part of an ex-presidents brigade gathering firewood for GMA’s burning? Well, actually, no. He was asked, he reported, but he said no. “How can you have a good alliance if one of the parties is untrustworthy, like Ramos? How can Cory (Aquino) and Erap (Estrada) trust Ramos?” Sen.Pimentel said,  “He’s a mole of Gloria, living up to his days as an intelligence officer.”

With his addled logic, De Venecia sees these reports from another angle: “(Ramos) is making them believe that he is aligning himself to be captured by the opposition. But he is actually trying to capture the opposition.” Then the punchline:

“(Ramos) is creating the synthesis because, by pursuing both the thesis and the antithesis, he is trying to create the synthesis,” FVR is a psy-war expert but a peacemaker, De Venecia concluded. Maybe, but De Venecia is definitely no language expert.

In the end, FVR slunk off to India with his tail between his legs after being forced to sit through a Lakas-NUCD dinner where he mostly swallowed his bluff. Because GMA said she would not resign in 2007 as FVR demanded, FVR asked for a meeting of the Lakas-NUCD directorate, thinking perhaps that his old sparring partner, De Venecia would help. Instead, FVR got corralled into a Malacanang orchestrated dinner in Malacanang! FVR must really have a lot of chestnuts in the political fire to allow himself to attend his own roasting.

Elite Dead End

Pro-GMA elite discourse these past weeks moved between the grubby ‘in-the-mud’ greed of NOEL and the ‘in-the-clouds’ wishful thinking of chacha by mid-2006.

At least local government officials have the guts to openly support NOEL. Despite loud protestations of innocence, national leaders from GMA to JdV maneuvered to secure NOEL in the Consultative Commission and continue to promise it to congress people and local government officials. What could be more anti-reform than subverting the electoral process with NOEL? How then can the same people turn around and claim the mantle of constitutional reform?

Conspiracy theorists believe that GMA and JdV have a few hidden aces backing up their triumphalist ‘chacha by mid-2006′ pronouncements. Only two tactics have so far come up, a Constituent Assembly where the Senate would be drowned in the House of Representatives’ numbers, and a people’s initiative. The first would require the Senate to acquiesce to its lynching, the second, for the Supreme Court to reverse two of its 1997 rulings saying there is no valid legislative basis for peoples’ initiative. These two steps would render these two bodies inutile. I doubt that GMA has worked out plans to destroy both the Senate and the Supreme Court. GMA and JdV are whistling chacha tunes in the wind.

GMA’s speech to Lakas was downright cocky.  “We are the superior force. Our opponents must either toe the line… or be relegated to the wayside of irrelevance or ignominy. With our heavy armory of democracy and legitimacy, we shall fight the squads of destabilizers and spoilers in the opposition.” GMA can afford to be cocky because  elite opposition groups have boxed themselves within the narrow confines of constitutionality and intra-elite maneuvering. In this terrain, GMA has the advantage of presidential resources and elite vulnerability to threat and susceptibility to bribery and patronage. To maintain her balance, it helps that GMA has a low center of gravity.

After being out maneuvered on impeachment and the Senate hearings, elite opposition initiative was focused on looking for ways to get snap elections. Various formulas with different combinations of proponents were explored including one calling for ‘bullet amendments’ to the constitution cutting GMA’s term and calling for ‘snap elections’. NOEL was also considered so its not just the pro-GMA camp which has dirtied its paws on this disgusting proposal. Since the ‘bullet amendment’ proposal went nowhere, the next idea bandied about was getting three ex-presidents to call for GMA to resign. Even before the pro-Erap crowd killed it with its embrace, FVR stopped it because he refuses to get out of GMA’s embrace. Now comes “Impeachment Returns” starring Oliver Lozano.

Whether he knows it or not, FVR’s proposal actually contains the key elements to an elite solution to the crisis. EDSA 1 and 2, and GMA cheating in the 2004 elections have undermined elections as an instrument for mediating elite factional conflict. Uniting the elite around a new electoral system, a new ‘instrument’ requires, minimally, removing GMA, who led the latest assault on the old, discredited electoral system. FVR’s mistake is believing that he can pull off an elite solution by making an opposition call – for GMA to resign – while staying within the GMA camp. He is, like GMA, too risk averse. The difference is that GMA has real power, the resources of the presidency, while FVR has only the memory of his presidency.

Since the September 6 killing of impeachment, all constitutional options for removing GMA have been closed. Because the elite opposition fears an extra constitutional solution, they have racked their brains for a non-existent constitutional GMA-ouster formula. Because they fear the Left and the unknown with equal foreboding, they have stuck to their own elite circles. Because the GMA camp has more room for maneuver, they have explored a longer term solution, chacha. But they have depreciated chacha with their greedy amendment formulas, with their scandalously greedy NOEL. What else is left in the grab bag of elite ‘solutions’, administration and opposition alike?

For the last couple of months, an extra-constitutional, systems change solution has been slowly shaped in many small and big, open and secret meetings. The process starts with the assumption that a solution to the crisis cannot be found within constitutional boundaries. There is consensus on the crisis of representation underlying the crisis of the Arroyo presidency and the need to make major changes in the form of government. The new actors in this wide ranging process will mean a solution outside of the boundaries of elite politics without excluding segments of the elite who recognize the need for systemic changes. GMA has to beware, her political ‘armory’ might be countered by a real one. She might have to fight not ‘squads but brigades of destabilizers’, new, surprising modes of people power. (15 January 2006)

@2003 Institute for Popular Democracy
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Metro Manila, Philippines
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