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Gloria’s Plan B?
It was only last April that my friend, Norberto Gonzales, national security adviser of President Arroyo, floated the idea of a post 2010 three-year transition government, and sent many observers snickering behind his back, dismissing it as another hare-brained idea, and even causing Malacanang insiders to distance themselves (and President Arroyo) from it. But Sec. Gonzales is at it again. Reacting to a recent statement by Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno that “the country is like a volcano that is about to erupt…” (it is) no longer following the law and was suffering “from broken morals because of corruption….” Gonzales repeated his transition government proposal.(Standard Today, June 15, 2009). Said he: “The call of the times is for the three major branches of government – supported by key pillars of our society like the Churches, civil society and mass movements – to agree to a transitional government respected by the Armed Forces…. A routine 2010 election would only perpetuate the Philippine’s sorry state…..Judging from our present crop of [presidential candidates] we will just have more of the same elite and bad politics in 2010….” “It is time to put an end to our recurring political crisis by really pursuing societal transformation. A transition government now can start this undertaking…” A transition government must institute electoral reforms that would truly empower the people and free the nation from very costly elections, Gonzales said. In a subsequent telephone interview with the Standard, Gonzales said that President Arroyo should be part of the transition government along with “all the good elements of the three branches of government and civil society…. “I don’t know if she has to step down, but she should be part of the transition government. It has to be now. I am foreseeing a disastrous elections, and this is the only peaceful way to resolve this social volcano that the Chief Justice has mentioned in his statement. “The idea of a transition government is that it is a little extra-constitutional. I have not consulted anyone from the Palace on this, but I think what Chief Justice Puno is saying again is right. I will stand by my statement. “A little extra-constitutional?” As in “a little pregnant?...” Bert did not state when this transition government should be convened. Before the 2010 elections, or after? And by what constitutional authority should it be formed? As far as I know, the operative 1987 Constitution does not say anything about convening a transition government to take over from the duly constituted one. So this would be a revolutionary government, like the government led by President Cory Aquino from February 1986 to September 1987, when the 1987 Constitution was ratified in a referendum. But why is Bert afraid to use the R word? In mid-2005, at the height of the ‘Hello Garci’ revelations about massive cheating in the 2004 elections, Horacio ‘Boy’ Morales, the political lieutenant of disgraced and deposed President Joseph Estrada, publicly stitched together a “transition governing council” to be led by former Defense Secretary Rene “Mr. Clean” de Villa, meant to take over state power from the then teetering Arroyo Government. As befit his background as co-founder of the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Morales included four Communists and “ex-Communists” in his “transition governing council” and even floated the idea of Joma Sison, founding chair of the CPP, being invited to join it. Which prompted Rene de Villa to categorically say that if Sison were made part of the “transition governing council,” he (De Villa) would resign from it. And that was the end of that revolutionary government, for that is what a “transition governing council” is. In his many critiques of the existing political order, Retired Maj. Gen. Fortunato Abat, former Defense Secretary and former ambassador to China, called for the establishment of a revolutionary government that would reform this country’s institutions over a transition period of three years. Abat even designated the Club Filipino in Greenhills, where he was speaking, as the seat of his revolutionary government. Whereupon the police came and carried him and his fellow revolutionaries by the seat of their pants to the police station. And that was the end of the Abat revolutionary government. And in 1986, the military mutiny mounted by then Defense Minster Juan Ponce Enrile and his RAMboys led by then Col. Gringo Honasan was meant to topple the Marcos Government and to put in its place a civilian-military junta (also a revolutionary government) with Enrile as junta head. But it was overshadowed by the sudden prominence of Cory Aquino, who went on to capture Malacanang through a People Power uprising and to establish HER own revolutionary government. That nothing revolutionary transpired during the Cory years does not obscure the fact many political observers acknowledge that the Philippines needs a revolutionary government to clean up the stinking mess that Philippine politics have become. Regular readers of this space know that I have been pushing for a revolutionary government since 2002 and have written several articles pushing this advocacy for a transition period of three years, all archived in my website www.tapatt.org. Bert Gonzales is right. “A routine 2010 elections would only perpetuate the Philippines’ sorry state…Judging from our present crop of presidential candidates, we would just have more of the same elite and bad politics in 2010….” But to cure the perceived infirmity, Gonzales wants to retain, beyond 2010, the incumbent President and the three branches of her government, who are responsible for the mess in the first place, or who - at the very least - did nothing to cure the infirmity in the eight years that they have been in power. And he wants this transition government “respected by the Armed Forces.” That sounds like Martial Law. Either Gonzales does not see the illogic in his reasoning. Or, if he does, he does not care. While Boy Morales,’ Fortunato Abat’s. Gringo Honasan’s and my putative revolutionary governments were meant to replace the incumbent governments, Bert Gonzales’ is meant to keep it in power. It is therefore counter revolutionary in every sense of the word. And it could be Gloria’s Plan B. Plan A would be hard to argue against. There would be presidential elections in 2010, and there would be no move to extend GMA’s term beyond June 2010. But she runs for a seat in the next Congress as representative of her electoral district in Pampanga, which she has visited an unprecedented 14 times in the last three months. So for several weeks in May-June 2010, she will be both the sitting president and an elected member of Congress, following the example of Vladimir Putin in Russia, as I had predicted as early as September 2007. When the new Congress meets in July 2010, the Palaka Alliance in the Lower House will railroad the formation of a Constituent Assembly to engineer a shift to the parliamentary system. And, to no one’s surprise, Congresswoman Arroyo will be elected Prime Minister of the new Parliament, there to reign forever as long as the Palaka Alliance retains majority of the parliamentary seats. Everything would be legal and constitutional. Adolf Hitler also rose to power, in 1934, legally and constitutionally. Plan B would be useful in the closing months of President Arroyo’s term in 2010, in case oppositionists, Communists, misguided Church leaders, uncooperative civil society busybodies, independent media persons and other malcontents, smelling something fishy in the Malacanang inner sanctum, stir up public discontent to the level of Iran’s current turmoil. A self-coup, or auto golpe, is not unheard of. President Alberto Fujimori did something like it in Peru in 1992. Bert Gonzales’self-appointed transition government would keep President Arroyo in power for three years or more beyond 2010, without any elections. And it would be “respected by the Armed Forces.” Gloria’s favorite general, Gen. Delfin Bangit would be there to make sure it is. Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com. |
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