Does gov’t still give option for reform?

Published in The Philippine Star, Friday, December 21, 2007

It will be a lonely yearend for the Arroyo government. Deservedly — given its series of shameful dealings and shallow cover-ups in the past 12 months. As 2007 draws to a close, Malacañang finds itself more and more isolated. One by one the sectors that matter in any tenure’s success have dissociated from Gloria Arroyo.

First, six main business groups decried a rising “culture of impunity.” The administration was inking one shady deal after another, like the ZTE scam, because it knows it can get away with them. One last time, the Makati Business Club, Bishop-Businessmen’s Conference, Management Association of the Philippines, Financial Executives Institute, Foundation for Economic Freedom, and Action for Economic Reform gave Arroyo the benefit of the doubt. Reform the Cabinet, they urged, carefully avoiding blaming her per se for the scandals. But instead of heeding them, the Palace deemed it cosier to just pay off congressmen and governors into blocking any impeachment. Outraged, regional chambers of commerce in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao joined the original six national organizations in denouncing the callousness. Pretending to be cool, Malacañang insisted that the economy was booming, so what’s the fuss.

Then, the heads of all Catholic, Protestant and Born-Again bishops condemned the regime’s “moral bankruptcy”. Joined later by three major congregations of nuns and priests, they enumerated the many unresolved issues under Gloria Arroyo: the Macapagal Boulevard overpricing, Impsa deal, Piatco deal, MegaPacific scam, fertilizer scam, Jose Pidal alias account, Hello Garci, ZTE scam, Palace bribery, and of late the Transco scam. Worst of all, they said, are the unsolved killings and kidnappings of activists and unionists, journalists and jurists. To that, Arroyo merely paid lip service to defending the weak during Human Rights Day. Her liaisons to the bishops also went around the islands urging friendly ones to rebuke the critics.

Now comes the official assembly of lawyers condemning the “culture of dishonesty and deceit” in the government. In an advertised statement in The STAR yesterday, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, like the bishops and businessmen, listed the frauds and flimsy explanations. Once again, the lawyers described the state of people’s mind: “These incidents dishearten the citizenry who is regularly fed reports of a supposedly improving economy which we cannot feel. When we vote, there is a lingering suspicion that our collective voice will be subverted. When we pay our taxes, there is frustration that our hard-earned money will be used not to pave our roads and improve social services.” Once more, they derided the situation: “These continuing acts of a government whose moral fiber has worn thin and whose conscience has seemingly vanished. A government, which has mastered the art of cover-up and manipulation, finds its constitutional right to lead diminished. It betrays the people’s trust when it thrives not on good governance but on corruption.”

The IBP takes a step further, though. The businessmen had asked Arroyo to rein in her thieving minions; the bishops, for her to please just leave. Now the lawyers are telling the people to themselves move instead: “We challenge the Filipino citizenry to channel their rightful indignation and disappointment into legal means of expression.”

The lawyers did not say what the means are. But coming as they do after the Trillanes-Lim sedition in Makati, they cannot be referring to violent ones. Filipinos, including those who dreamingly prescribe the death of all citizens aged above eight as a start of meaningful change, abhor bloodshed.

But does the situation still leave Filipinos room for peaceful change? Dissenters in the city demonstrate and get clubbed by the police. Those in the countryside are picked up and tortured by death squads. Local execs are the first and last resort of aggrieved folk, but Malacañang has co-opted them too with P500,000-cash gifts from the public till. The Speaker had suggested a moral revolution, but was hooted down by his own House allies and close advisers. Senators are developing a new habit of inquiring in aid of snuffing out an exposé of misdeed.

Malacañang will surely treat the lawyers’ outcry the same it did the businessmen’s and the bishops’ — with derision. And Malacañang will do the same with the next influential sector that stands up and says it has had enough.

As the Integrated Bar came out with its rebuke of the Arroyo regime, the latter’s political allies were at it. All 236 congressmen paid themselves P200,000-Christmas bonuses each, for a total of P47.2 million. A justice who invariably decides for the administration bought himself a brand-new Jaguar. And a cabineteer who loves the good life saw to the delivery this week of his P200-million yacht.

Sure, it will be a lonely Christmas for the administration men. But what the heck, they must be assuring themselves. They’ve got the money anyway.