ON DISTANT SHORE
by Val G. Abelgas
There’s more than meets the eye in the two-page advertisements that the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) has been running in three major newspapers in the Philippines heralding the alleged accomplishments of the Arroyo administration in the economy, social development, public works, law and order, job generation, agriculture, energy, environmental protection and digital infrastructure in its nine years in office.
The ads, costing taxpayers millions of pesos, are being run to coincide with the start of the campaign for the coming presidential elections. The ads compete in extravagance and prominence with the multi-million peso campaign ads of Nacionalista Party presidential candidate Sen. Manny Villar.
The ads also come at a time when the 10 presidential candidates are ripping each other apart, diverting the issue away from Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. While the candidates destroy each other and spending millions of pesos to gain the people’s vote, Arroyo is using the people’s money to win the “hearts and minds” of the Filipino people, in much the same way that the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos competed for the “hearts and minds” of the people through his Bagong Lipunan propaganda at the onset of martial law.
Arroyo and her henchmen have been very busy promoting her alleged legacy in the past few weeks, and are not coy about saying more ads and more efforts will be done in the next few months to herald Arroyo’s achievements in the last nine years. In fact, PIA chief Dodi Limcaoco called on other government departments and agencies to put out similar ads.
Aside from the costly ads, Arroyo has been conducting campus tours to speak to students about her achievements. She has already visited the College of the Holy Spirit near Malacanang and the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in Bacnotan, La Union.
Arroyo has also sponsored dinners with editors and officers of major Philippine newspapers. She has already visited the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star and is scheduled to visit more.
What is she up to this time?
Deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar said the ads were normal and necessary part of government communication. With an aggressive propaganda against the President, including allegations of corruption, he said it was only normal for the government to inform the people where their taxes went in the last 9 years.
Well, obviously the taxes went to unnecessary expenses like too many foreign and domestic travels, election campaigns and propaganda like these ads, otherwise the people would have been happy and make her a very popular president, instead of being the most hated and most unpopular president the country has ever had, except for (even this is debatable) Marcos.
To be honest, the ads look sinister to me.
Arroyo is not running for reelection. She is running for a congressional seat in her home district in Pampanga, but she doesn’t need multi-million peso advertising to win that one. After all, she has already diverted billions of pesos in government funds to that district that would ensure that she and her family would dominate politics there for decades.
Neither is Arroyo actively endorsing administration candidate Gilberto Teodoro, so I don’t think speculations that the slogan “Ganito Tayon Noon; Ganito Tayo Ngayon” was a subtle endorsement of Teodoro (GT) rings true.
Honestly, I don’t think Arroyo is worried about her legacy. She didn’t give a hoot about public opinion or media criticisms for nine years, and suddenly she was worried about the public and media’s perception of her? Give me a break.
In fact, the relative silence of Arroyo in this presidential campaign is deafening. She doesn’t seem worried that her party’s candidate Teodoro is stuck in the tail end of the surveys. She seems perfectly confident that when the political dust settles after May 10, she would still be there. And she needs to condition the minds of the people that she deserves to still be there, and she needs the support of the media when that time comes.
Very Marcosian, indeed. As soon as Marcos declared martial law in 1972, he launched an intensified campaign to justify his continued stay in power with his Bagong Lipunan propaganda. Of course, he did not need the support of the media then because he closed down all newspapers, and radio and TV stations. He made it appear that his declaration of martial law was good for the nation, thus his slogan: “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan.” Disiplina, of course, was the dictatorial rule.
This advertising blitz, the media dinners, and campus speaking tours are all designed to win the hearts and minds of the people, and condition them to believing that Arroyo, not these raucous presidential candidates, is the best person to lead the country, even after her constitutionally mandated term has expired. “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, si Arroyo ang kailangan,” the ads seem to say.
A scenario of Arroyo continuing as holdover president because of failure of elections is becoming more and more probable as the election nears. With less than four months to go, the success of the new and untested poll automation program remains uncertain. There are just so many glitches — printing problems, communication glitches, power worries, untrained election personnel, etc. – to be confident of a smooth election.
In the meantime, legal and constitutional experts cannot agree on who would become the interim president in case of a failure of elections. According to Rep. Edno Joson, who filed a House bill that would specify the line of succession in the event of failure of elections, and the Vice President, Senate President and House Speaker are unqualified, said there is a strong possibility Arroyo would use a failure of elections as an excuse to stay in office beyond the expiration of her term on June 30.
“A major or even a minor glitch in the automated voting and counting, where the number of votes involved could affect the outcome of the election for president and vice president, could result in a failure of elections. Violence in Mindanao could have the same effect,” Joson said.
The Constitution names only the vice president, Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives as successors of the President. Contrary to popular impression, the Supreme Court chief justice is not among the successors, he said.
The incumbent Senate president, Juan Ponce Enrile, is seeking reelection. His term expires on June 30. The incumbent Speaker, Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles, is ending his term also on June 30. Joson said if there is an election failure on May 10, theoretically, senators could still elect a replacement for Enrile when Congress resumes session on May 31.
“But supposing senators cannot muster a quorum? Supposing Malacañang applies pressure on senators so they cannot elect a new Senate president? If the camp of Sen. Manny Villar can work out a boycott of sessions, so can the Palace. We will then be stuck with GMA,” he said.
Lawyer Ernesto Francisco, on the other hand, said under Republic Act No. 181, when neither the president-elect nor the vice president-elect shall have qualified, and the Senate president and the speaker have not yet been elected, Congress shall elect an acting president from among the senators and members of the House. That acting president shall remain in office until the president-elect or the vice president-elect shall have been qualified, he added.
Francisco said Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in Congress can elect her as acting president after she wins a seat in the House when the people fail to elect a president or vice president because of some events like the breakdown of poll automation, vacancy in the post of Senate president and the speaker on June 30 next year. Arroyo’s election as acting president would be easy because under RA 181, the election shall be done by Congress in joint session, not necessarily with the Senate and the House of Representatives voting separately, he added.
Arroyo is not one who will let such an opportunity escape. She has tried various ways to remain in power beyond 2010, including several botched attempts to amend the constitution. Her insistence on naming the Chief Justice despite prohibitions on appointments during the election period has been suspected to be in preparation for any legal obstacles that could block her extended stay or her return to power.
Her appointment of generals belonging to PMA Class ’78, to which she belongs as honorary mistah, to key positions in the military has also been suspected as part of preparations for a possible extension of her term.
Amid all these scenarios, Arroyo now spends millions of pesos of the people’s money to herald her achievements, in an obvious attempt to condition the minds of the people that she is the best person to lead the country.
Scary.
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