In an alternate universe, Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo, former Philippine president, would have sealed her place in history by fulfilling her promise not to seek reelection in 2004 when she served out the remainder of the overthrown Joseph Estrada’s term.
The promise, recorded in the presence of a vast crowd and replayed on prime time television prompted astute political observers like Prof. Solita Collas-Monsod to hail Arroyo as a politician-turned-stateswoman.
Indeed, having declined the search for a fresh mandate, Arroyo would have proven herself true to her word on Edsa’s hallowed ground after taking oath as president following the country’s second People Power Revolution in January 2001. She had no ambition, she told a people euphoric after Estrada’s ouster, of becoming a great president, but desired only to be remembered as a good president.
In the said alternate universe, the “Hello, Garci” scandal would not have transpired. Candidates for election would have maintained the decorum that forbade them to contact poll officials during vote canvassing.
But we are not in an alternate universe. “Hello, Garci” happened. In 2005, Arroyo, following the dissemination of recordings that, put mildly, sounded like her and Garci, confessed to and apologized for calling during the 2004 vote count an election official whom she never pinpointed as being Garcillano. Garcillano denied being Garci until he tried to enter Congress and used the nickname Garci as part of his campaign jingle.
Amid calls for her resignation, Arroyo refused to leave office. People clamored for her to go. The bishops officially told her to discern if she should depart while some of them, together with now deceased former president Corazon Aquino visited Malacañang and asked her to step down in peace. Half the Cabinet withdrew their support from her. But she had learned how to nip in the bud another People Power revolt and repeated often that while the world welcomed Edsa Uno and tolerated Edsa Dos, it would never forgive another Edsa uprising. Those of us who exercised our right to seek redress of grievances by signing an impeachment complaint were stymied as Arroyo had the numbers in the Lower House led by then speaker Jose De Venecia.
Arroyo held on to power through thick and thin. She did project power very well. I remember one feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel when the carriages bearing statues of the saints had to wait outside the Carmelite monastery in Cebu at the end of the procession because Madame President was inside.
That is a striking memory. The need to take extra security measures with the help of the presidential security group may have been necessary in view of the large number of devotees present for the fiesta. Or not, given the supposedly low-key nature of the head of state’s visit. Or perhaps, anyone, no matter how powerful whose conscience is under siege simply needs more safety guarantees, visible and invisible. Whatever the case, we remember that on the same sacred ground, Aquino had taken refuge during Edsa Uno in 1986, certain that the intercession of nuns would keep her safe while dictator Ferdinand Marcos did his best to withhold power from her, his rightful replacement.
Arroyo has been released from hospital arrest following the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the plunder suit against her, one of many that were filed soon after her presidency expired to jeers at the Quirino Grandstand as she trooped the military line one last time. We do not know if one more case of plunder for which she is under investigation according to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales will prosper. As we shake or scratch our confounded heads, we also have to keep faith in our institutions and challenge our courts to afford suspects of less privilege the same protection given Arroyo, and this has nothing to do with the bloodshed implicit in the Filipino understanding of the word “salvage.”
Will the temporally mighty ever be properly called into account in these parts? Those familiar with the law often echo that adage calling for justice to be done though the heavens fall. A final reckoning will arrive for everyone, pauper or prince, and amid the travails of history, when we wrestle with the nagging feeling that much is amiss in the administration of justice, let us all continue performing acts of justice in our small circles of influence. In a sense, heaven has fallen with every saint who has countered injustice with charity. Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite blessed protested through journalism the persecution of Jews in the time of Nazi expansionism, an act that ultimately cost him his life. The heavens have fallen that we may do justice. Perhaps the reason we do not see justice flourishing is that we are ourselves unjust at heart. If we can kill the poor man on mere, false accusation of being a drug pusher, we deserve it when the rich go scot-free in spite of charges and proofs of plunder.
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