Bulatlat

It is ironic, indeed, that the Arroyo administration, which seemed to have successfully upheld the rule of law and, by doing so, sent a strong signal that it is serious in fighting corruption, is now being regarded as if it were the one on trial. But, according to analysts and critics, there is basis for all this.

BY CARLOS H. CONDE
PinoyPress
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 34, September 30-October 5, 2007

MANILA — Six years ago, Senator Teofisto Guingona stood at the lectern of the Philippine Senate and accused then president Joseph Estrada of corruption. Like the French novelist Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse!” open letter in the Dreyfus Affair, the senator’s impassioned “I, Accuse!’’ speech, which reflected the outrage many Filipinos felt against what looked like an increasingly corrupt regime, had a huge impact. It drove more people to the streets to protest against Estrada and emboldened senators to impeach him. Four months later, Estrada was ousted in a “people power” uprising.

But months before Sept. 11, the day an anti-graft court handed down a verdict finding Estrada guilty of the crime of plunder for allegedly taking kickbacks and payoffs, Guingona had had a change of heart. Estrada, he said in July, had suffered enough and should be freed. ”He is a man who has found a new light and a new life,” Guingona said. ”He is now a new man.”

When pressed by journalists to explain this baffling turnaround by the respected politician who is one of the country’s well-known civil libertarians and nationalists, Guingona said he thought attention should now be given on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the many allegations of corruptions that have hounded her administration.

Guingona is certainly not alone in that belief. In fact, the view that Estrada’s conviction now makes it imperative to go after Arroyo and her friends because her regime is allegedly worse than Estrada was a recurrent theme in the reactions to the verdict, in which Estrada was sentenced to reclusion perpetua, or a maximum of 40 years in prison.

It is ironic, indeed, that the Arroyo administration, which seemed to have successfully upheld the rule of law and, by doing so, sent a strong signal that it is serious in fighting corruption, is now being regarded as if it were the one on trial. But, according to analysts and critics, there is basis for all this.

The Estrada verdict should serve as a ‘’stern warning” against the current administration ”who may end up with the same fate because their crimes are far, far worse than the ones Estrada was convicted of,” said Carol Araullo, chairperson of Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, New Patriotic Alliance), the leftist bloc that organized many of the demonstrations against Estrada and Arroyo.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel, an Arroyo critic, said Thursday last week, “The government must now show that it didn’t single out Estrada. Other cases of plunder involving administration officials should now follow.”

Unless Arroyo resolves the scandals hounding her, said Senator Francisco Pangilinan, Estrada’s conviction will “cast a very long and dark shadow” on her administration.

Benito Lim, a political scientist at the Ateneo de Manila University, said he expected this kind of reaction. ”Arroyo’s critics will now start comparing amounts,” he said in an interview. ”And the crucial consequence of this is that the verdict will strengthen the movement against Arroyo because of all the unresolved allegations of corruption against her.”

Nothing perhaps underscored this point than the testimony in the senate last week by Jose de Venecia III, a businessman, who accused Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel, and the head of the elections commission, Benjamin Abalos, of interceding on behalf of ZTE Corp., a Chinese telecommunications company that cornered a $329-million contract to build the government’s broadband network project. According to de Venecia, the contract was overpriced by 100 percent because of kickbacks that went to Abalos, a key Arroyo ally who had been accused of having had a hand in the 2004 elections cheating that favored the president.

Apart from the ZTE deal, other corruption scandals – all disclosed in separate Senate hearings in the past several years — included the alleged misuse of more than 700-million pesos of agriculture funds to buy votes during the 2004 elections; the alleged money laundering by Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, of campaign funds and contributions; the alleged payoff received by Arroyo’s former justice secretary, Hernando Perez, in a $470-million energy with an Argentine company; and Arroyo’s alleged close relationship with Bong Pineda, an alleged gambling lord from the President’s hometown in Pampanga.

But at the heart of Arroyo’s troubles is the allegation, backed by testimony and a controversial audio recording, that she cheated in the 2004 elections. Arroyo’s opponents in Congress twice attempted to impeach her for this but failed because they didn’t have the numbers.
Attempts by the Senate to investigate this scandal and the others were unsuccessful, largely because Arroyo, through an executive order, prevented her officials from testifying in any congressional probe without her approval.

And in a sign that the alleged 2004 election cheating has found no closure, the Senate attempted early this month to reopen the case but it again was hamstrung by attempts by Arroyo’s allies to block the investigation. Besides, Arroyo’s order banning her officials from testifying remained, the protestations on its illegality and authoritarian character notwithstanding.

All these scandals have worsened how Filipinos regard Arroyo. Her trust ratings are dismal. A survey released early this month by the Social Weather Stations, a Manila polling institute, found that 62 percent of the respondents had ”little trust” in Arroyo. In contrast, only 19 percent of the respondent felt the same way toward Estrada.

In the same survey, only 31 percent believed Estrada was corrupt while a high 71 percent believed the same thing about Arroyo. Seventy-two percent of the respondents also said that corruption worsened under Arroyo. Estrada and his supporters have vowed that the verdict would not stop them from opposing Arroyo. On Wednesday, he said he would take his case all the way to the Supreme Court. His allies promised to launch more protest actions.

According to administration officials, the guilty verdict was the best possible verdict to avert a more serious political crisis. ”The government could not afford an acquittal,” Crispin Remulla, the deputy majority leader in Congress, told Philippine Daily Inquirer. ”An acquittal would have caused instability.”

The 2001 uprising that ousted Estrada rode on the presumption that he was guilty of many sins — an acquittal would have undermined this presumption and would have emboldened Estrada’s camp to question Arroyo’s legitimacy.

Talk is rife here that Arroyo would pardon Estrada. Last week, Sergio Apostol, the presidential legal adviser, hinted as much, pointing out that Arroyo has been pardoning convicts who are 70 years old or older. On Sunday, Arroyo approved negotiations for a possible pardon.
Indeed, a pardon for Estrada, who is 70, would be the most politically astute decision for Arroyo, according to Lim, the analyst. ”The guilty verdict legitimized her mandate,” he said. ”She will become magnanimous once she pardons Estrada. It’s just a matter of time.”
The public pulse seems, indeed, to favor this option. In the same survey by the Social Weather Stations, 86 percent of the respondent said Arroyo should pardon Estrada, with almost half of them saying it should be done immediately. In blogs, Filipinos are talking about Arroyo doing a Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon after Watergate.

For now, Arroyo seems focused on not getting distracted by the Estrada phenomenon. On Thursday last week, she refused to answer questions from journalists about Estrada. ”We are moving on as a nation,” she said in a speech at a forum on the peace process with Islamic insurgents. Earlier, she boasted about the recent improvement in the economy and the reforms that she said she is determined to put in place.

Filipinos, she said, are “tired of political drama and social instability.” PinoyPress / Posted by Bulatlat