Theres The Rub
End of the road
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:57:00 08/21/2008
Filed Under: Personalities, Politics, history
MANILA, Philippines—There was something almost serendipitous about the moving of Ninoy Aquino’s day, which is this Thursday, to last Monday. Which is that something happened last Monday to drive home to us again the significance of Ninoy’s death. Last Monday, Pervez Musharraf resigned after having ruled Pakistan with an iron fist for nine years.
What made it possible, in an uncanny parallel to Ferdinand Marcos’ times, was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto shortly after Christmas last year. Benazir was holding an election rally when a suicide bomber hurled himself at her car, killing her and 20 others. The killing was swiftly claimed by a group with ties to al-Qaida, but suspicions about Musharraf having a hand in it were never quelled. He had the most motive, if not the most means and opportunity.
Like Ninoy, Bhutto had been in exile for some time—eight years in Dubai and London—and she came home to challenge dictatorial rule. Musharraf had seized the reins of government in a coup in 1999 and had since held on to it, tightening up or liberalizing depending on public sentiment and/or outcry. Like Marcos, Musharraf was an SOB, but he was America’s SOB: He had been a dependable ally in the fight against terrorism, pretty much doing everything the Americans bid in exchange for their support. Like Ninoy, Bhutto knew the risks she was taking coming home, expressing her fears to CNN at the time. Like Ninoy, she gambled and “lost.” The “lost” is in quotation marks for good reason: She lost her life, but she gained a country.
Like Cory Aquino, Bhutto’s family led her party, the Pakistan People’s Party, against Musharraf in elections in February this year. Unlike Cory, who won only in the hearts of her countrymen, if not in the official election tally—the gap dramatized by the Namfrel walkout—the PPP won the vote, thoroughly drubbing Musharraf’s party. Like Marcos, who faced a political uprising shortly after the snap elections, Musharraf faced a political uprising shortly after the regular elections: The winning coalition was threatening to impeach him.
Alone, isolated, and an irate crowd rattling the gates of the Palace, Marcos fled. Alone, isolated, and an irate crowd threatening to rattle the gates of his palace, Musharraf resigned.
The spectacle reminds us yet again of something Ninoy’s murder 25 years ago and the murders of countless Filipino martyrs affirm: that tyrannies, however impregnable they look, are brittle and cave in under the tremors of a people outraged; that tyrants, however fearsome they seem, are small and puny and are flicked away by the howling winds of a people united. Only last year, Musharraf straddled the world like a colossus and looked like he would last forever. Today, he is gone, and the only thing you wonder is how in God’s name he lasted that long.
Which thrusts us from the past to the present, from the parallels between Marcos’ time and Musharraf’s time to the parallels between Musharraf’s time and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s time. Will the same thing happen to her? Can the same thing happen to her?
Well, the same parallels are there, but they are not seen. The question is how to make them visible.
This regime has learned enough from Marcos to realize the backlash from creating a martyr. Though I wouldn’t discount that possibility as it becomes more desperate. We do have martyrs aplenty in the political activists and journalists who have been sent to the afterlife over the last few years, not the least of them Jonas Burgos, who has become the face for them. But, alas, this country has not risen to embrace them as so.
Just as well, like Musharraf and Marcos, Gloria Arroyo has seized power. That was not in 2001, though that is what the Joseph Estrada camp asserts to this day; that was in 2004, which most Filipinos know to this day. Except that she did so by ballot and not by bullet. Which is really the more insidious and terrifying: There are limits to seizing power by bullet, there are no limits to seizing (or maintaining) power by ballot. The latter can be done again and again. And can include plebiscites and referendums, such as on Charter change.
And the most unseen parallel of all, which is that then as now, in Pakistan as here, we have an iron-fisted rule that has no end in sight. The Pakistani coalition’s sense of urgency in forcing Musharraf to resign came from the knowledge that someone who has seized power and tried to keep it by various ruses would not give it up so easily or willingly. Waiting for a new prime minister to replace him was suicidal, inviting as it did new ploys to thwart a changeover. When the Philippine opposition or the citizens themselves will get that sense of urgency, I don’t know. Committing suicide is this country’s favorite pastime.
Who knows? Maybe the judgment of history on Musharraf, as articulated by some of Pakistan’s officials, may help. From Pakistan’s Information Minister Sherry Rehman: “The pressure in Pakistan was mounting for him to step down as he was seen as standing in the way of any credible transition to democracy—and today we saw him reading out his own epitaph on his misrule and lack of governance. He tried to justify pretty much what he had done, but I think at the end of the day this was the only option, because the space for him to remain president had shrunk so much that it had become impossible to carry on.”
From Wajid Hasan, Pakistan’s ambassador to England: “He damaged Pakistan a lot. He claimed that he put Pakistan back on the map of the world—(but) the fact is that Pakistan, during his time, came to be known as an epicenter of international terrorism. The general perception was that he was part of the problem, not the solver of the problem.”
Sounds a lot like Marcos. Sounds a lot like Gloria.
Or do we need another Ninoy to make us see that?
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