I personally am glad Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is meeting with George W. Bush later this month. It reestablishes in the public mind the very close links between those two leaders.
By close links, I do not mean their “anti-terrorist” alliance, which has always been shaky and become even shakier with Arroyo veering closer to China. I do not mean by it that Arroyo and Bush have made “special relations” even more special by drawing the two countries closer. I mean by it the uncanny similarities between those two, enough to make one believe, despite the fact that one is ruler of the world and the other ruler only of Lilliput, that they are psychic twins.
Both are the progenies of presidents who became presidents themselves for a couple of terms. Bush by tinkering with the Florida votes the first time—that was how he beat Al Gore—and by winning reasonably cleanly against John Kerry the second time. Arroyo by being swept to power the first time and by cheating the hell out of FPJ the second time.
Both are small and petty and have a huge chip on their shoulders, resentful of the fact that before they came to power they had been belittled for being, well, small and petty. Both have an insatiable appetite for power, Bush seeking it for the Neo-Cons and their vision of the United States straddling the world like a colossus, as Cassius said of Caesar, and Arroyo seeking it for herself. (One is tempted to add “and her husband,” but that presumes a capacity to see beyond self, a trait she has little shown.)
Both are detested by their constituents. A CNN/Opinion Research poll last month showed that 71 percent of Americans disapproved of Bush, the first time any American president broke the 70 percent barrier. He has single-handedly provided David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart and other talk show hosts no end of material, which was probably what got them through the writers’ strike. Arroyo hasn’t just broken every barrier in disapproval rating, she has zoomed past them. She is probably more unpopular now than Marcos was then: Marcos at least had the undying loyalty of the Ilocanos (and Imelda the Warays), Arroyo has only the dying loyalty of the Cabalens and the Cebuanos. Or their loyalty does not come from the heart, it comes from the pockets.
Most importantly, both like to lie to their people. If it hadn’t been patent before, Bush’s former press secretary has made it patent now: Bush lied about the Iraq War. He sent American youths to their deaths in desert sands for reasons that had nothing to do with democracy or freedom. The subtitle of Scott McClellan’s book sums it up: “Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.” He might as well have been writing about Malacañang. In Arroyo’s case, well, what has she not lied about? The only truth she has ever told is that if she ran in 2004, she would bring unending divisiveness upon this country.
But I am glad Arroyo is meeting with Bush later this month because of an even more compelling or sublime reason. That is the fact that Barack Obama, who has just won the Democratic primaries and will be the next president of America barring an assassination, provides a tremendous contrast—not least for Filipinos to see—between him and them. Right vs. Wrong, Virtue vs. Vice, Hope vs. Despair, Good vs. Evil, Life vs. Death.
Obama’s core message is Change, the one thing that Americans want, as shown by the surveys. That is the opposite of the core message of Bush and Arroyo, which is More of the Same. Obama’s core thrust is transparency, or telling the truth about the Iraq Invasion and everything else about life to the American people. That is the opposite of the core thrust of Bush and Arroyo, which is to lie unto death.
Indeed, the very core of Obama’s existence is hope, the unlikely hero of the story winning in the end, the Hobbit undoing the Evil Eye, the neophyte senator stealing the thunder from everybody else and going on to become the first black president of America. That is the opposite of the very core of Bush’s and Arroyo’s existence, Bush being one US president who, like Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, roistered a reign of tyranny and paranoia, and Arroyo being one Filipino president who, like Ferdinand Marcos, stole everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor, including the vote and human life. They will, or should, go on, to disappear in the bowels of obscurity or the annals (or anus) of infamy as they richly deserve.
This is one time I won’t really mind that we yield to the clutches of “colonial mentality” and imitate, or make “gaya-gaya,” as the “coñotics” say, the United States today. We’ve already pretty much forgotten EDSA People Power, we could do with some new infusions of inspiration, and this is one huge shot of adrenaline in dying veins. By all means let’s talk of change and truth and hope too. Even better, let’s ape America shamelessly and produce an Obama too.
If we are to take any consolation from the hell on earth that Bush and Arroyo have wrought, it is only in that it has made us, or should make us, hanker for heaven. That is the only good they have done, to be so evil they’ve left us no choice but to crave good. Without the despair Bush has provoked, America would not have glimpsed the hope Obama invokes. I don’t know that we will ever produce an Obama—though I have no doubt we do not lack for people like him, who are to be found however outside the ranks of today’s politicians. But I have little doubt that the hell Arroyo’s long and despotic rule has brought us will have us hankering for heaven too. When that rule is over-and it won’t be so unless we move to make it so—we will demand from ourselves never to be plunged to that nightmare again.
When Arroyo and Bush meet later this month, their constituents themselves will have only one agenda: Change.
