Our case against GMA

Our Case Against GMA

I think the current crisis began about March-April this year when opinion surveys showed disapproval and dissatisfaction with GMA at their then record highs. In essence, people were seeing so little that this 4-year old government has done. This disapproval escalated in May with the jueteng hearings that featured corruption involving the First Family, reminding us about the betrayal by GMA of the very values that brought her to power when Erap was ousted. This finally boiled over with the Garci tapes (introduction, attempted cover-up, spread, fake apology) which raised the ante: she cheated; she is illegitimate.

GMA’s poor performance, corruption and illegitimacy are not isolated failures but part of a mutually reinforcing syndrome. Patronage is essential to maintain an illegitimate president which then yields poor performance tainted by corruption that generates public dissatisfaction and opposition that creates greater demand for patronage, in a cycle of worsening inability to govern. Even as we speak, this cycle continues.

Our reactions to these 3 aspects of GMA’s presidency get mixed up together and we just want her out. PGMA has failed to perform, she should be out. PGMA is corrupt, she should be out. PGMA cheated, she should be out. The mixture of these reactions lead many to call for her resignation.

Examining the Resign Movement

The GMA resign call is really a short-cut. Resign, because you failed to perform. Resign, because you are tainted by corruption. Resign, because you never had the right to be there in the first place. Put this all together, resign, because you can no longer govern effectively since you will be pre-occupied with survival rather than with reforms.

There are, however, logic problems with the resign call. If we were only dissatisfied with her performance, changes in her performance may be appropriate rather than calls for resignation. If we were convinced about her corruption, the proper course should be impeach, convict and punish. And if we were convinced about her cheating and illegitimacy, the usual constitutional processes will not do only forcible removal (EDSA 1 Marcos style) will do. In sum, resign is a short cut but it does not really fit the grounds of our case against GMA.

Resign, moreover, is only a short-cut if GMA cooperates. If she resists as she has, a stronger popular pressure for removal will have to be mounted. And this will require much more, longer and higher levels of efforts, wider mobilization, much tougher critique than just summary judgments and most of all a better alternative than simply Noli succeeding GMA. Mounting such an effort, however, may not be commensurate to our perceived potential gain in a simple replacement by Noli of GMA. First of all, the longer and tougher the struggle to get GMA to vacate her office the greater is the possibility that Noli’s limitations will become more obvious. The greater the effort necessary to get GMA to leave, the higher the expectations created and the greater the possibility that Noli will fail such expectations. Finally, a rigorous and strong critique of GMA will probably apply to Noli as well.

Meanwhile, PGMA’s current survival strategy, which is to attack those leaders who called for her resignation, could only strengthen the resolve of these leaders, further deepens divisions, closes options for some kind of moral resolution and incidentally strengthens the Erap-associated or left-led opposition. This will just generate further proof of GMA’s inability to govern effectively.

Politicians’ Version of What’s Next

Our politicians’ solution to this crisis provides only two choices. Choice 1 surrender, accept continuation of GMA, swallow your objections as she is still your best chance. Choice 2 is impeachment, which is likely to fail but may offer an excuse for people to swallow their objections to GMA (she was tried but acquitted of cheating). This is really just a less garapal version of Choice 1. In the remote possibility that impeachment succeeds and GMA is convicted, this choice leads to a Noli presidency which may not have good prospects of success. If Noli will have difficulties under normal conditions of becoming president, how much more difficult will it be under much worse crisis conditions several months from now?

The problem with our politicians’ solutions is that there is no guarantee that GMA will behave differently from how she behaved which got our country into this mess in the first place. Public opposition to government under her will continue and is unlikely to calm down. Soon adverse economic consequences will unfold and could outrun any of these choices forestalling chances of a viable political solution leading to stability.The bottomline to these choices is that our present system with the incumbent personalities is essentially bankrupt: it cannot offer a credible political solution to GMA’s mess. If she survives, the country suffers. If Noli succeeds after impeachment, he is likely to fail and the country suffers.

One possibility is that this is where it could end. Maybe there is really insufficient public demand for a real resolution to GMA’s mess. Maybe the public is closed to entertaining any option outside the politicians’ solutions which they have been hypnotized to accept under the mantra of “constitutional processes” and “rule of law”. Maybe the public is more interested in avoiding the risk of violence, disorder or civil strife, than they aspire for a moral resolution and an effective political solution to GMA’s mess. Maybe the credible strategic choices available are simply inadequate to call forth and inspire a robust response from potential advocates and leaders for change. If this possibility is true, then maybe our nation is not yet ready to change their political system to become more consistent with their deepest values and will instead find some way to change the way they think of their political situation.

Another Option

I am thinking that within the heart of the resign movement, there might be a seed of a better solution than the people resigning to GMA continuing. The call to resign has the right factual motivation and moral justification, it was just an inadequate political course of action. What if we re-formulate this as a peaceful and legal protest movement to “remove and replace” GMA? What if we develop this strategy, build a new coalition around this and engage our people so that new leaders can emerge from this struggle and a credible vision for political change can be articulated?

What I am talking about is a non-violent, self-sustaining campaign to peacefully remove GMA as a logical next step after our call for her resignation went unheeded. We simply get people to express their judgment that GMA cheated and that she cannot remain president. We might build from alternative ways to express this judgment which people have already shown through Garci ringtones and Garci jokes. We can brainstorm and test alternative ways to engage people other than marching in the streets and listening to speeches. Here are wild ideas:

1. “Cheating is Wrong” Family Day which might be sunday picnics that allow parents and their children to show their disapproval of cheating
2. Workshop for Noli’s Succession: a serious meeting to discuss the agenda of reforms under a Noli succession
3. Concert to Bid Goodbye to Gloria
4. Text to SONA which might be a text protest to GMA’s SONA speech
5. Hello Garci, Goodbye Gloria CD which might contain songs and excerpts of the conversations with explanations about the cheating
6. Wall posters at universities that students can sign and comment which are then assembled at one gathering so that young people can look at their work
7. Gloria Quit Quilt which is a quilted collection of people’s expression of protest in a piece of cloth sewn together and used as backdrop to meetings or rallies

There are many others we can think of. But you get my drift. I think it is possible to just start many small trials and build up the ones that could catch fire among our people.

I have other ideas and suggestions for the serious political stuff that a succesful protest movement can lead to based on the ideas outlined in the past two columns of Randy David and Father Bernas at the Inquirer, but these are not yet fully formed and we may need to discuss these further.

Mario

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Our case against GMA

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