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Cha-cha: The poison pill

EDITORIAL

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03/31/2009

Malacañang insists that Gloria Arroyo will be stepping down by 2010, when her term ends and that there will be elections in 2010.

The arguments given by her aides of her leaving Malacañang are, among others, the fact that the country is now in an election mode and that administration presidential aspirants are now being winnowed by the Palace and shortlisted.

At the same time, however, Malacañang also says the Charter change move in the House, led by her two sons, her pointman in the House of Representatives for Cha-cha, Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez and the officials of her party, Kampi, is the business of Congress, not the executive branch of government. This being so, Malacañang states that the Palace does not interfere in the business of a co-equal branch of government.

All this is pure Malacañang manure. No Speaker of the House is elected unless there is that imprimatur from the Malacañang tenant. And there was one time, some two years back, when Gloria, in her state of the nation address, came out strongly for Cha-cha, saying: Let the great Cha-cha debate begin.

Yet today, she, through her spokesmen, insists that she has nothing to do with the congressional moves to change the Constitution.

But all Gloria has to do is to make a public announcement that Congress should put a stop to Cha-cha moves and can even use as justification, the global economic crisis which is being felt in the Philippines, what with hundreds of thousands losing their jobs and a big budget blowout, with a deficit estimated at P300 billion this year.

She has, after all, too many times claimed that there should be a stop to “poison politics” for the nation to get going, and has as many times called for unity among the people, for the nation to “move on.”

There is no question that Cha-cha is highly divisive, which will make her call for national unity meaningless and her reluctance to make public her rejection of Cha-cha moves at this time has convinced the Filipino people that she wants Cha-cha through a one-House Constituent Assembly (Con-ass) effected this year, to put in place an amendment that would allow her to stay on in a transitional capacity to segue into a parliamentary system whereby she will be eligible to run for office in her district and emerge as prime minister and head of government.

So why isn’t Gloria moving to squelch all talk of Cha-cha moves to ensure her political longevity if she, as she claims, is completely focused on the economic problems? Why isn’t she moving to stop her sons and her allies from their Cha-cha moves?

The answer is clear: She and her husband, the First Gentleman, are the brains behind the House’s move to change the Constitution.

But she must know that there is great opposition from the Filipino public to moves to amend the Charter while she is in Malacañang. There will no doubt be political instability that will have to surface, given the fact that too many sectors in society are against such moves, including the presidential aspirants who have their constituents and can mobilize them for big rallies.

True, she may have the military and police in her pocket, just as Ferdinand Marcos, in the early protest years, had the military and police in his pocket. But she should also remember that as violence from the state erupted against the anti-government demonstrators, the world started to pile on the pressure in many different ways and in the end, Marcos had to go.

Not even a military or a police force, so corrupted by the Malacañang tenant, can go against the Filipino people for too long.

Gloria and Big Mike should recall certain similarities between her time and Marcos’ time. Economic problems bogged down Marcos and his government and the protests against his regime created an even worse economic and political climate for him.

Similarly, the global economic crisis is upon Gloria and her government. Street protests will merely create more problems for her. And in the end, even if she remains in Malacañang, whether as President or Prime minister, she will have to go, vertically or horizontally.