Snap Election or Transition Council?

As the Filipino people gear up for yet another campaign to oust a discredited President, not a few ordinary citizens have asked – what’s in store? Some opposition leaders have floated the chances of a simple resignation or a snap election while progressive blocs are pushing for a transition council.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat

In the event that a fed up populace throws out a third president out of Malacañang, the question of who would be the country’s next leaders has often cropped up. This scenario has arisen in the light of calls for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign following an expose of taped conversations linking her to electoral fraud in the presidential polls May last year.

In his public statements, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimenel floated the scenario of having Senate President Franklin Drilon as the country’s next president. This, he said, would follow the constitutional succession considering that public clamor is for the President and her vice president, Noli de Castro, to step down.

Several others have said that it should be former Sen. Loren Legarda who should be president considering that she was the vice presidential bet of the late Fernando Poe Jr. who, in turn, should have won the presidential race.

Poe and Legarda had filed an electoral protest with the Supreme Court (SC) questioning the results in several precints particularly in Mindanao. The protest however was dismissed by the high court early this year after Poe died of stroke in December 2004.

The events may have brought the issue on a downhill save for the emergence of the now infamous “Hello Garci” tapes that would prove there was fraud during the 2004 elections.

Transition council

The progressive Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), however, proposes what it calls a transition council in the event Macapagal-Arroyo is ousted from the presidency.

Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes, in an interview with Bulatlat, said the idea is similar to a council of leaders that would effect some immediate reforms and would prepare the country for another election that should determine the new leaderdship.

He however said it would be premature to talk about the composition of the council because the broad alliance for Macapagal-Arroyo and de Castro’s ouster is just taking shape.

But he made sure that the forces that would make this up would come from the “the most decisive and most serious forces” that would throw the president and vice president out of the palace.

At the moment, Reyes said, the groups that are consistently critical against the present regime, aside from the progressive mass movement led by Bayan, would come from the United Oppostion (UNO), the Partido ng Masang Pilipino, the FPJ camp led by character actor Rez Cortez and Linggoy Alcuaz, some Catholic Church bishops and other religious sectors like the Bangon Pilipinas of former presidentiable Bro. Eddie Villanueva and some retired and active generals from the Philippine Army.

But the young activist leader added that the broad alliance against the flaundering regime would gain more ground should there be defections from the military and police and government officials such that of former Presidential Commission on Good Governemt (PCGG) Commissioner Heidee Yorac and National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) Chairman Roy Señeres.

Reforms

Reyes said the progressive forces wild aspire that the transitional council would commit itself to nationalization of basic industries and genuine land reform, the two factors that should give economic relief to the basic sectors of society – labor, peasant and the urban poor.

But since these reforms would take a longer time to be implemented and as the council would only be interim, some immediate reforms should be in the offing such as a wage increase.

And since the the wiretapped conversations of Macapagal-Aroyo with Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano would establish the illegitimacy of the present regime, Reyes said, “Laws signed by an illegitimate president should also be examined.” 

These laws would include such controversial ones as the Mining Act and the 12 percent Value-Added Tax (VAT), he said.

The transition council should also have a policy on advancing the peace process and immediately putting a stop to intensive military operations in the countryside that have resulted to human rights violations. This would include the immediate relief from their post of notorious army officers involved in human rights cases such as Brig. Gen. Jovito Palparan, presently commanding officer of the 8^th Infantry Battalion PA based in Eastern Visayas and Lt. Gen. Romeo Dominguez, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippine’s Northern Luzon Command (NolCom).

Crackdown

Meantime, in its desperate attempts to suppress the growing voice of the people, the Macapagal-Arroyo government has apparently gone overboard in attacking the opposition, specifically those who have come forward to campaign for her ouster.

In news eports June 17, Justice Secretary Ramon Gonzales said congressmen who would dare play the controversial “Hello Garci” tapes at the congressional inquiry on June 21 face arrest.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), on the other hand, issued a memorandum banning the airing of the wiretapped conversation through compact discs, cell phones and the internet shall be apprehended.

Gonzales also warned media groups that if they played the tape again, the justice department could charge them with violating the Anti-Wiretapping Act or their licenses revoked.

Whistleblower Samuel Ong, former National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) deputy director for intelligence who surfaced last week with the original copy of the wiretapped conversation, has also been charged with inciting to sedition. Ong took refuge at the San Carlos Seminary in Quezon City after the revelation but was ordered to leave the seminary on June 13 for allegedly violating some rules. His whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Talks of another martial law declaration have also been circulating like wildfire since June 17. But opposition leaders have said that the Macapagal-Arroyo regime would be putting itself down the drain if it declares martial law in an attempt to silence her critics and to stop the move for her ouster.

In a statement, the Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties (MCCCL) called on the citizenry to be more vigilant.

“It is during this time of severe crisis that civil liberties must be upheld and respected. Further repression will only fan the crisis and would cast more doubt on the credibility of the administration,” the movement said. With reports from Ronalyn Olea /  Bulatlat

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