Bad signs for Gloria

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

11/21/2007

Some 60 percent of Filipinos have expressed very strong sentiments against Gloria Arroyo, saying they want her to quit.

The Pulse Asia survey on these findings made no mention of Gloria’s name, making it a general question of a president with links to corruption or with strong evidence of a president or her kin being involved in corruption, but it is evident that, as she is the incumbent Chief Executive and mired in corruption controversy, it is Gloria whom survey respondents had in mind when they replied to the questions posed by Pulse Asia.

Predictably, being a passive people, majority of the Filipinos, or 61 percent of the 59 percent who want a president linked to corruption to quit, said they were willing to sign petitions calling for the resignation or removal of Gloria.

This is, needless to say, a fairly passive move, as they must be aware of the fact that even if 80 percent of all Filipinos sign up in a petition for her resignation, nothing will come out of their petition.

But it is perhaps understandable that more Filipinos have taken the passive route. Rallies and marches staged after Edsa II, especially that of Edsa III, which was certainly joined in by a lot of people than the elite Edsa II, have been marked by police and military brutality — including their firing at the people with live bullets, and even killing at least two dozens of these protesters, while injuring hundreds.

Moreover, since 2001, every single time a big protest rally is planned, Gloria’s goons make sure that the rallies are broken up and even go to the extent of barring other demonstrators from nearby provinces from entering Metro Manila, as well as ensuring that rallyists massing up at key points to march to a convergence point are dispersed, or not allowed to leave their areas and join the rest of the rallyists, precisely to ensure that the rallies never get big enough to scare the wits out of Gloria and her Malacañang.

Still, despite these many setbacks, there is about a quarter of the respondents who say they are willing to join rallies and marches calling for the removal of Gloria. That’s still a sizable number that is willing to make its voice heard through protest action. That’s already a big number, if people power-style of removal is to be resorted to by this group to get rid of Gloria.

After all, the elite 2001 coup d’etat disguised as people power certainly had less than 300,000 persons at Edsa calling for the resignation of Erap, even if a December 2000 SWS survey said some 75 percent of the Filipinos were against a people power revolt.

It will also be recalled that sometime in February 2006, months after the “Hello Garci” scandal erupted, and on the anniversary of Edsa II, there was to be a really huge demonstration against Gloria, but this was quickly dispersed by Gloria’s goons, who started arresting known protest leaders, under the claimed emergency rule which was junked by the high court.

But what is even more significant, are the survey findings that a quarter of Filipinos, or 25 percent, are willing to do whatever is necessary in going about this task of removing her or getting Gloria to resign beyond the usual public rallies and marches, to achieve their objective.

That’s a fairly big number of Filipinos who have expressed willingness to have her removed beyond the usual modes.

Unfortunately, the Pulse Asia survey did not delve deeper into the issue, to clarify just what is meant by 25 percent of the Filipinos saying they are willing to go behind the usual. Does this mean joining forces with rebel soldiers, for example? It may, considering the fact that there has been found an increase in earlier survey respondents who have said they are for a coup d’etat by the military.

It also can mean that those who are willing to join demonstrations and those who are willing to go beyond the usual modes of removal of Gloria, can be counted on to lend support for Gloria’s removal, especially if a military component appears in the horizon.

The question really is whether at this point, Gloria and her military generals are so in control of the officers and men in the Armed Forces of the Philippines for the chain of command not to break, or if there are enough officers and men who are willing to withdraw support from Gloria and her government, no matter what the risks are.

Because in the end, as long as a military component moves against Gloria, it is certain that the Filipino people, even the most passive ones, will support the military — at least in ridding the country of Gloria.

Getting the military to run the government is a different matter altogether. Filipinos are still allergic to military rule.

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