By Tony Antonio
I met former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) on a few occasions when she was at the peak of power, and I observed during those up-close meetings that she possessed a rare charisma that made her a likeable person and an extraordinary politician.
I thought then that she would be a great President and that after she steps down from power, she would be a well respected, admirable, honorable lady.
Who would expect in those days that she would end up in the pitiable, miserable situation she finds herself nowadays?
Gloria is miserable these days not only because she is suffering from a neck-bone disease that requires her wearing a steel brace, but also because the attack on her reputation and that of her family is relentless. Whether the new charges and criticisms against her are true or baseless, the image these accusations conjure is that among all the past Presidents, she is the most dishonest and corrupt.
The amazing thing about Gloria is that she ended her term in a most regular manner. She was not deposed unlike former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada and Ferdinand Marcos who were ignominiously ousted by people power.
At present, though, it appears that Erap is more respectable than Gloria. The reason is that Erap has already cleared himself of plunder charges, while Gloria is feeling giddy as she watches the pile of plunder charges getting higher every week. The sixth plunder case against her was filed recently. And more similar cases are expected to be filed soon against her and her husband Mike Arroyo.
I can only hope that Gloria will be able to clear herself of all the accusations. The trouble is that it may take forever to determine the truth or falsity of the charges – no thanks to the snail-paced grind of the wheel of justice in the Philippines. In the meantime, she suffers absolute disgrace.
I am tempted to speculate on the cause of all the troubles bedeviling Gloria. I believe that she started her presidential bid in 2004 with the wrong foot. The “Hello Garci” scandal was the trigger. It was the initial indication that her victory in the polls was, to put it mildly, less than honest. And she had not succeeded in clearing the cloud of doubt over the questionable way she won in the election.
Recently, these accusations gained credence as a result of new testimonies that the presidential election in 2004 was rigged, that the duly elected President would have been the late Fernando Poe, Jr. and that her victory was a sham.
Yet this is just one of the supposed sins of Gloria. There were other scandals being blamed on her. These included the fertilizer scam, the ZTE broadband scandal, the Jose Pidal scandal and the Maguindanao massacre.
All these have tarnished her reputation. It is so tarnished that metaphorically, she now looks like an Ati-atihan queen blackened with soot.
Notwithstanding her besmirched reputation, she went on to finish her six-year term and was even elected congresswoman of Pampanga, her home province, in the last elections. I believe this is due to her extraordinary courage.
Without courage, Gloria would have fallen at the height of the “Hello Garci” controversy. In fact, she almost stepped down.
I wonder, though, if she has the courage these days to watch the TV newscast or read the newspapers, all screaming with headlines about her alleged sins against the people. Perhaps she may have imposed a news blackout on herself.
What a tragedy!
No comments:
Post a Comment