War

SHORTLY BEFORE the holidays, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s party, Lakas-Kampi, declared it was fighting back.

“We are a constructive minority (said Rep. Danilo Suarez, a party stalwart), at supportive kami, pero mukhang kahit anong gawin naming pagtulong, iniisa-isa ng administrasyon ang mga kasamahan namin (and we are supportive of the administration, but whatever we do to help, it seems this administration only wants to go after us one by one). The marching order is to go nationwide on strengthening the party and go on (political) offensives. We will start to criticize this administration.”

Even as he spoke, Suarez said, Edcel Lagman was already preparing exposés against government officials for graft and ineptitude. “It’s damaging. We are calling for congressional inquiries. It sums up everything. Corruption and inefficiency are serious cases. The exposé will be an eye opener.”

Well, they are entitled to their delusions about their strength and the impact of their exposés. The part about inefficiency can be safely dismissed. At the very least that is so because we can forgive accidental inefficiency but not a deliberate one. Or we can forgive bungling but not blindness. However inefficient some of today’s officials are, it cannot compare with the inefficiency of Merceditas Gutierrez. Take it from the local adage: The hardest person to wake up is the one pretending to be asleep.

At the very most, that is because we know how efficient GMA was. She very efficiently stole the vote. She very efficiently bought the generals and bishops. She very efficiently depopulated this country of several hundred political activists.

But this notwithstanding, the GMA camp’s “fighting back” stance does suggest two things P-Noy’s government ought to add to its anti-corruption campaign. Two things that are not to be found in its current tack.

First is to stop being coy and say right out it is at war with the past (non-) president. If you’re going to say you’re at war with the Ombudsman, you might as well say you’re at war with the person she is merely playing proxy or stooge for. Though to be accurate, what P-Noy actually said a few weeks ago was, “May bakbakan po tayo ngayon sa Ombudsman,” which the papers translated as “We are at war with the Ombudsman.” “Bakbakan” is more limited in scope, a running battle, a conflict, a confrontation. War is a lot more comprehensive, an all-out conflagration. You do battle with minions, you wage war only with their master.

That is more than a matter of semantics. P-Noy gets to be associated with waging war on Merceditas Gutierrez, or worse using the entire apparatus of the state to crush her, she is going to look like an underdog. The unstated—and therefore more dangerous for being subliminal—question in people’s minds will be: Why don’t you pick on someone your own size? The one who is P-Noy’s size, figuratively speaking, is GMA, the source of the most gigantic corruption in this country since Marcos. Declaring war on GMA will be seen as fair and just. More importantly, it is so.

Again I don’t see the point of government being reticent about admitting, or declaring openly, that the point of Gutierrez’s impeachment is to plumb the depths of the past regime’s corruption. The GMA camp, as evidenced above, is going to interpret it that way anyway and take measures against it. You might as well galvanize the people to action, or to outrage, by directing their gaze to the true target of that impeachment. The point is not just to see how blind and deaf Gutierrez was, it is to see what she was blind and deaf to.

Second is to expand the meaning of corruption beyond pillage or thievery.

I doubt the GMA camp’s exposé on current government officials being corrupt or inept will get much traction. That is so because I doubt they will find a comparable scale of pillage to rival the fertilizer scam and the NBN. Size does matter. The bigger the scale of thievery, the more Filipinos starve to death, or pine in ignorance. Certainly, the more it draws the public’s gaze.

But it could becloud the issue. The GMA camp digs deep enough and it can always find dirt against some of today’s government officials. In fact, it doesn’t have to dig deep at all, some of those officials were GMA’s loyal servants before they thought her number was up and became disloyal. She has the goods on them. Certainly her camp can always make a case of the Peace Bonds.

Maybe it won’t get as much traction as the things that will be exposed during the Gutierrez trial, but why risk reducing the problem into one of relative crookedness when it doesn’t have to be so? Even if the real target of Gutierrez’s impeachment is GMA, it still suffers from that it reduces GMA’s crimes to stealing money. That is like reducing the Ampatuans’ crimes to illegal possession of firearms. GMA’s crimes go well beyond that. Far, far beyond.

I’ll say it again (and again). The corruption of GMA is of another order entirely than just thievery or pillage. It is of the same order as the corruption of Marcos. It is wrongdoing of a monstrous sort. It is the theft of everything of value to this country and people. That is what differentiates her from her predecessors, other than Marcos, that is what will differentiate her from her successors. That was the reason she was hated, like Marcos. That was the reason this country made P-Noy president, in protest against her. That was the reason it seemed almost inconceivable for her to be able to continue living in this country, never mind as a representative, after what she had done. You make GMA out to be a crook, however big-time, you do her a favor. You make this country forget the hell she dragged the country through.

Know your enemy: That’s what wins wars.