MANILA, Philippines -- The Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime sowed the wind by squandering People Power goodwill through sleaze and human rights infractions. It slammed shut a rare window of opportunity for greatness. Like the sped arrow, the spoken word or frittered opportunity never returns. Ask the first Philippine president convicted for plunder.
Ferdinand Marcos? dictatorship and Joseph Estrada?s soused bacchanalia reaped the whirlwind. So will this administration. Can anybody saddle and ride this twister tomorrow?
?Trapo? [traditional politicos], like Jinggoy Estrada, coup-for-rent soldiers, plus Jose Maria Sison?s comrades, failed to harness this cyclone. At State of the Nation Addresses, Makati City rallies, Oakwood and Peninsula Hotel, they yelled themselves hoarse urging people to mass. Few bothered to RSVP.
Their shoddy credentials, junta blueprints laced with Red jargon pissed off groups that mustered People Power: the middle classes and religious groups. ?We?re not getting anywhere,? Rep. Ronaldo Zamora sourly admitted then.
?The evil that men do lives after them.? Long after Ferdinand Marcos uncorked the military genie, ?the boys are still out,? a retired general told the Inquirer. Former Navy Lt. (now Senator) Antonio Trillanes IV and platoon-mates cling to the delusion that their guns will rescue a people who spurn jackbooted ?saviors.?
Marcos? ?Rolex 12? conned us. University of the Philippines political scientist Jorge Tigno and the poll group Social Weather Stations? Linda Luz Guerrero, in a 2006 study, found Filipinos attached to democratic values. ?They?re more scared of the military than of Arroyo,? writes Yvonne T. Chua.
That hasn?t changed today. Who?d buy a Filipino clone of Burma?s Gen. Than Shwe? That?d consign us to international pariah status.
No one bought Sison?s commissars? demand for a politburo-style junta. It?d rule for 1,000 days, without elections. Now, Representatives Crispin Beltran and Rissa Hontiveros-Baraquel recycle the idea. It won?t fly.
With a plunder conviction, Estrada hints that he may run as the opposition presidential candidate in 2010. Will he sign the certificate of candidacy as ?Jose Velarde?? Estrada?s bid ratchets bickering by other aspirants, from Manuel Villar to Loren Legarda. All would mount the whirlwind saddle.
Choosing between Estrada, Joe de Venecia, Ping Lacon or Alan Peter Cayetano on the one hand and Arroyo?s cabal on the other is choosing between Barrabas and Barrabas. ?A plague on both your houses? has been the reaction of people. Thus, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel told aspirants itching to strut in oust-Gloria rallies, ?Back off.?
This stand-off persisted -- until idiots kidnapped the unknown Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. When Lozada wept, ?I saw tears in the crowd,? former representative Felicito Payumo of Bataan province noted in his ?Blink and the hinge factor? essay. ?Admitted imperfections made him more credible.?
?In Lozada, people saw a neighbor or friend violated by the State. Not just his physical body but his person (?nilapastangan ang pagkatao?). Not by thugs but by State goons. They, likewise, felt violated. They didn?t buy the line that Lozada was being protected when held captive in a long ?joyride.??
?The Tipping Point? author Malcolm Gladwell explains this credibility in his book ?Blink,? Payumo adds. People can tell if one is telling the truth. Gladwell calls this ?the power of thin slicing.? People can make ?sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience.?
Thus people knew whose voice was on the ?Hello, Garci? tapes. No obfuscations from Ignacio Bunye or voice print analysis from Mike Defensor changed their mind. That ?I am sorry? statement proved people right.
?Hinge factors? (like) chance or stupidity can change history?s course. From Agincourt to Mactan and Vietnam, ?the hinge factor was weather or human stupidity or a deadly combination of both.?
Henry V?s foot soldiers mowed down armored chevaliers because the French commander ignored ?soggy ground (that) gripped horses? hooves like thick molasses.? Magellan overlooked the distance from his boats to Mactan?s shore at low tide. Weighed down by armor, they were mowed down by Lapu-lapu?s spears.
Cameras caught South Vietnam?s police chief firing point-blank into a civilian. From that moment, American generals had to fight world opinion, instead of Vietcongs. ?That stupid act was matched by shooting a man on the tarmac of our airport,? Payumo recalls. ?It started the chain that unhinged the Marcos dictatorship.?
Will seizing a ?probinsyanong Intsik? [provincial Chinese] and paranoid defenses uncork a whirlwind? ?It depends on how stupid government?s response will be,? Payumo writes. ?[A hinge] act by Marine Gen. Artemio Tadiar, refusing to shell Camp Aguinaldo, prevented bloodshed ? and let [EDSA People Power I] run its course ? in favor of the people.?
The crisis, meanwhile, dismantles unnoticed one of our fondest illusions: that before midnight, someone on a white charger, will dash in to banish enemies. They?d rebuild plundered institutions while we slump back to business-as-usual.
This ZTE scam instead tells us: Look beyond discredited pretenders to ordinary people. Leadership is not an office. It is life lived and, in the on-going process, brings change. Academics, parents, students and barangay officials seeking truth will usher in tomorrow. They continue to do that with Governor ?Among Ed? Panlilio in Pampanga province. People Power is a weapon of last resort. A stray ?hinge factor? may yet see that unsheathed.
?Much of what is new and innovative is not initiated by governments,? Indonesian thinker Soedjatmoko wrote. ?Their source is ?movements from below?: expressions by ordinary people of their aspirations for a decent, secure and equitable way of life.?
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Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com
