Beyond Gloria - Randy David

Just noticed that this was never posted and remained as a draft.
But I suppose its as relevant today, as it was 2 years ago!

Public Lives : Beyond Gloria

First posted 06:34am (Mla time) July 10, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the July 10, 2005 issue of
the Philippine Daily Inquirer

GLORIA Macapagal-Arroyo has set back the political growth of our
country by at least 20 years as a result of her single-minded
pursuit of personal power. She has re-injected into our nation's
governance a mode of rule that perniciously privatizes state power.
Like a small town politico who has mastered the rhythms of the
patron-client system, she has bought the personal loyalty of law-
enforcers, the acquiescence of legislators, the allegiance of
justices, and the silence of civil society. She has used government
resources to wage an expensive electoral campaign like no other
president has since Marcos.

It is easy to think this is all the result of a fatal flaw in
character. But that would be a myopic view. The truth is that Ms
Arroyo is very much a child of a political culture that was dominant
in the time of her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal. It
is clear to us now that she has known no other form of politics, and
no other way of running a government.

In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos tried to break the stranglehold of this
old culture on the nation's life in order to install himself as a
dictator. He justified martial law as a shortcut to modernity, a
revolution from the center that would resolve the contradictions of
a feudalistic social order. He abolished the political parties of
the traditional classes, shut down Congress and the media which had
been their playing fields, and seized their properties. This attempt
to leapfrog to a "New Society" by fascist means, as we all know,
spawned its own problems that Marcos could not contain.

The coercive mode of rule has a limited lifetime. To prolong its
stay, it has to acquire moral legitimacy and practical utility for
the greatest majority. Marcos almost succeeded. But he was overtaken
by global events and personal illness.

The return to formal democracy in 1986 auspiciously began with a
revolutionary government under a provisional constitution. The first
task that the Cory government set for itself was to dismantle the
structures of authoritarian rule and pave the way for the
establishment of the regular institutions of democratic life. The
pre-1972 political and economic elites hijacked this laudable reform
project and sought to put it securely on a restoration track.

Today, the democratic, nationalist, and social justice legacies of
Edsa I survive in scattered provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
Many of these have remained frozen, while others are threatened with
cancellation by means of amendment. It is one of the supreme ironies
of our time that it may sometimes be necessary to step out of the
Constitution's iron grip in order to preserve its spirit.

Perhaps today is such a time. The present crisis, as I see it, is at
its core a replay of the same conflict that has hounded the history
of our republic since its founding. This is the conflict between
those who look up to the Philippine state as our people's collective
instrument in their quest for a prosperous and secure life, and
those who would treat it as a private instrument in the pursuit of
personal gain and vested interests. This conflict has come to a head
because it is taking place in the context of the sharpest social
inequality and mass poverty that our nation has ever known.

The underclasses of our society did find a chance to reverse this
situation in 1998 when Joseph "Erap" Estrada was elected president.
Although he was not of the masses, he nevertheless represented their
deepest yearning for a better life. Unfortunately, Erap was
entrapped in the same system and soon betrayed the dreams of his
mass constituency. His failure gave the modernizing middle class the
chance to assert its leadership. With the impending downfall of
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, that initiative has now also hit a dead-end.

Today, the republic is under severe strain; the old fault lines of
our society-class, ethnic, and religious-are opening up. There are
enough brokers out there of every imaginable stripe that want to
make sure that whoever succeeds Gloria, the basic organs of a dying
social order are preserved.

The whole issue boils down to this: What kind of socio-political
order can give hope to the vast masses who are jobless and hungry,
and a chance at personal fulfillment for the millions of our young
people who are increasingly unable to imagine this is nation of
great heroes? All I know is that we cannot merely change faces and
then move on as if it was business as usual.

I believe that nearly every thoughtful Filipino today is convinced
that deep structural changes are necessary. What these changes are
and how they are to be put in place are the main questions upon us.
Some insist on a controlled process, under the same government with
either GMA or Noli de Castro at the helm, through a constituent
assembly entirely dominated by the same political class. What this
option offers essentially is basic continuity and the promise of
certainty and stability.

On the other hand, those who have taken to the streets to air their
demands insist on the necessity of a transitional phase that
includes the formation of a caretaker government, the drafting of a
new constitution, the dismantling of the structures of patronage
politics, and the modernization and democratization of the rules and
procedures of the electoral system. A number of our citizens have
expressed wariness over the uncertainties this option may spawn. But
its principal attraction is the promise of meaningful change and of
enduring peace in our country.

Whatever road we may take, it is now clear to us that a step beyond
Gloria is a step in the right direction.