Aquino’s totalitarian option

by FRANCISCO TATAD

We are made to believe that President B. S. Aquino 3rd wants the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee to wind up its open-ended “inquiry in aid of legislation” into Vice President Jejomar C. Binay’s alleged wrongdoings when he was still mayor of Makati. And we are made to believe that the three senators driving this questionable probe have asked Malacañang not to interfere.

Would that we could take at face value everything we hear from this administration.

My own reading is that this is all scripted play. Both statements are meant solely to mislead the uninformed. Malacañang wants us to believe that like most of us, Aquino is fed up with the demagoguery and boorishness of the senators. The senators on the other hand want us to believe they are not inside Aquino’s pocket nor under his thumb. But those who are able to distinguish power play from horse play know it’s all song and dance: both sides are playing games with us; we are all being played.

The truth of the matter is not what they want us to believe. The campaign to destroy Binay had Malacañang’s full imprimatur from the very start. Aquino presided over the small meetings that put together and approved the plan, and Senators AntonioTrillanes 4th, Alan Peter Cayetano and Aquilino Pimentel 3rd, and the Makati anti-Binay politicians either volunteered or were simply conscripted to implement it.

Outside of the subcommittee, this involved a massive mobilization of manpower and other logistical resources far beyond the capacity of the three senators, separately or jointly, to arrange. The entire government machinery was put to work to come up with everything they could throw against Binay –not all of which they have used so far. Corporate cronies, including those who were reportedly also helping Binay, were tapped to help bankroll the operations, one Palace source said.

According to this source, Malacañang will do to Binay exactly what they did to former Chief Justice Renato Corona, minus the impeachment (if possible), as far as his financial records are concerned. The source said that although Binay’s enemies claim to be already in possession of the “goods” against the VP, they are still “calibrating carefully” when to release their most damaging material, for maximum effect.

This could be pure “psywar.” But if it isn’t, then it means the worst has just begun. Aquino’s statement could have a coded meaning different from the public impression it seeks to create; instead of promoting a truce between the parties, it could actually suggest a coup de grace. Since all the parties tend to believe that the propaganda surveys, which Binay has dominated since 2010, have become the lone political reality that should decide who should run and who should not run in the next crooked machine elections, Aquino’s proxies will now try to make sure that Binay’s numbers are ultimately washed out, and the once “man-to-beat” reduced into a cipher. Aquino, having previously asked the senators to cease and desist, could now say that he tried, but failed, to dissuade the trio from claiming their “rights and privileges” as legislators.

But assuming Malacañang’s objective is attainable, getting rid of Binay does not solve its problem. It does not make Mar Roxas, the presidential pretender-in-waiting, any closer to becoming a viable contender. Like all the announced presidential wannabes, Roxas is a creature of the fudged survey ratings. But the erosion of Binay’s numbers has not added half a digit to Roxas’ own; he could lose unopposed, except in a completely rigged election.

The only one who has managed to hang on suspiciously to a fairly respectable “rating,” despite all the crimes he has committed against the Constitution and the Filipino people, and the rank incompetence and heartlessness of his regime, as will be sworn to by the typhoon Yolanda victims, is PNoy. The propaganda fraudsters have labored to credit him with a number that shows an understandable “drop” in his so-called “popularity,” but which remains “still high.” The figure is most certainly the fraudsters’ gift to the embryonic totalitarian ruler; even some of his more honest relatives and friends doubt it is real.

Aquino has become a lame duck whose future could be as bright as the heart of a power blackout inside his chief prisoner’s detention cell. For this reason, the most concerned of his relatives have suggested that he exit the presidency while there is still time, and seek political asylum in a friendly country that has no extradition treaty with the Philippine government. Highly reliable reports indicate that initial contacts have been made by a deeply concerned uncle with the Sultan of Johore, a close family friend.

PNoy, however, will not hear of it, convinced as he is, for reasons known only to himself, that he remains “popular” and “loved,” and “feared” by the Filipino people. Thus, despite earlier reports that he has abandoned the idea of seeking a constitutional amendment to allow himself to run for a second term, some people close to him insist that he will ultimately try to extend his stay in Malacañang by some other means.

There would be no time to amend the Constitution for this purpose, in time for the projected 2016 elections. The amendatory process, in particular the plebiscite to ratify the proposed amendment, would come so close to the election, and the nation would, in effect, be holding two elections, one after the other in close succession. The expense would be incalculable, not to mention the fact that the nation has not done anything like it before. Yet convinced that his destiny is to stay on, Aquino could declare a revolutionary government. This would formalize his totalitarian control of the three branches of government, and terminate the fiction of his being accountable to the Filipino people.

The only question is, will the National Transformation Council, or the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as protector of the people and the State, allow it to happen?

fstatad@gmail.com