GMA and martial rule? / How about a Third Force?

For all the smiles that easily sparkle from her face these days, for all the graces she claims the good God has bestowed on her person, for all the optimism she exudes that her present Malacañang watch will eventually boom and bloom, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is deeply distraught and disturbed. In the dark hours of the night when she is all alone and vulnerable, she knows the nation is in deep crisis. She is aware the shadows are closing in and the Republic can cave in anytime. She can never forget the early dawn of May 1st when for the first time in this country’s history, the legions of the poor stormed the Palace and would have captured it and toppled her from power were it not for the police and the military who came to her succor and dispersed the siege.

Problems and issues in battalia now swoop on GMA as they have never swooped before. Not even on President Ferdinand Marcos when he declared martial law September 21, 1972. Marcos at most had only half GMA’s problems, but greed took the better of him. Of all of these problems today, unprecedented and grinding poverty is the huge python now curling around the Republic. And soon it may squeeze and strangle it to death. Feeling beleaguered because of May 1, President Arroyo declared a state of rebellion, and issued arrest warrants for those who stoked the wrath of the poor, bade them to rise in revolt, incited them no end to attack Malacañang and sever the head of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Today, the situation is worse, much worse than it was during the weeks preceding May 1.

Crime is a multifanged cobra spitting its venom every day. Kidnap for ransom — not to mention killing, murder, rape, robbery, salvaging — has become a common occurrence. Foreigners are now the favorite of kidnap gangs. And it’s frightening. Drugs have entered the picture, its tentacles an ever widening network of corrupt police officers and men, top bureaucrats, men and women on high including some senators and certainly a clutch of congressmen — all riding a ship whose black masts symbolize loot on the high seas and hoot of the graveyard. The economy is in the grip of two crises, one domestic which started a long time ago, the other international which today has the world on the edge of a global recession triggered by the September 11 terrorist destruction of Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Together, these crises can and will slice the stomach of our economy wide open the first or second quarters of next year. Everybody is transfixed with fear for the morrow.

What is President Arroyo to do?

Pollster and fellow columnist Prof. Felipe B. Miranda, who often looks at the light side of life, shocked me last Tuesday when he wrote his column titled "Anyone for having martial law?" Quoting figures from his latest Pulse-Asia survey, Pepe Miranda said that although 53 percent opposed any declaration of martial law, this could crack like a twig because 25 percent already agreed to a martial law option, with 22 percent undecided. The hint was that as times get worse — and they will get much worse — 25 percent would be joined by the 22 percent, while the 53 percent could scramble.

The hidden message of Professor Miranda was this: If and when the citizenry senses that Armaggedon is just around the corner because the economy has already plummeted and crime gets worse, the streets exploding with demonstrations and riots, the people themselves will be screaming for an authoritarian or semi-authoritarian government. Martial rule appears to be the most convenient because it is provided for by the 1987 constitution.

See. 18 of the Constitution reads: "In case of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it (italics mine), the President may, for a period not exceeding sixty days, suspend the writ of the privilege of habeas corpus or place the Philippines or any part thereof under martial law. Within 48 hours from the proclamation of martial law or the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, the President shall submit a report in person or in writing to the Congress. The Congress, voting jointly, by a vote of at least a majority of all the Members in regular or special session, may revoke such a proclamation or suspension, which revocation shall not be set aside by the president."

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Here’s another proviso: "A state of martial law does not suspend the operation of the Constitution, nor supplant the functioning of the civil courts or legislative assemblies, nor authorize the conferment of jurisdiction to military courts and agencies over civilians where civil courts are able to function, nor automatically suspend the privilege of the writ." Here’s another proviso: "During the suspension of the privilege of the writ, any person thus arrested or detained shall be judicially charged within three days, otherwise he will be released." Hello.

I am afraid the martial law provisions of the 1987 Constitution are about as forceful and full-fisted as the cat’s meow. The very enemies of our democratic system — a corrupt Congress, a corrupt judiciary, a corrupt bureaucracy, a corrupt police – will continue to hold office. Not only that, Congress can revoke the proclamation of martial rule by a simple majority. Hello again. In many people’s minds, the nation will be better off if all the members of Congress, particularly the sanctimonious members of the Senate who harbor the most dangerous man in the Philippines, are posthaste exiled to the planet Venus, there to die of immediate asphyxiation. And if any person arrested or detained is not judicially charged within three days, he shall be released. Hello! How long did it take the Sandiganbayan to formally charge Joseph Estrada with plunder? Longer than an elephant herd to move their bowels when on a safari.

No, this kind of martial law won’t work. And if Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resorts to it, she will be swallowed up.

And, pray, why do we so discourse on martial law today? As we said earlier because Professor Miranda is smitten with the times, very dangerous times. He indirectly admits the "liberal politics" prevailing at present totters on the precipice. If we can only decrease our population by one-half from 78 million to 39 million, then maybe we could just pull through without any social uproar of explosion. We would have much less to feed, much less to employ, much less to care for. But an extra 39 million people contain the social dynamite, a huge stack of explosives that have accumulated through the decades and generations. They are now bound to explode and they will explode.

This time, the poor will not be stoked by the reactionary right, represented by the Puwersa ng Masa, a euphemism for Benito Mussolini’s fascist brand of politics. Or Juan and Evita Peron’s right-wing corporatism.

Or Francisco Franco’s Falangist State Party built on a spurious crusade to modernize Spain. No wonder, almost all of them hied over to the Aryan Supremo of Nazism, Herr Adolph Hitler, who barbecued six million Jews in the gas chambers of Dachau, Aucdwitz, Buchenwald, Chasenhausen. I don’t think that this time Miriam Defensor Santiago, Juan Ponce Enrile, Senators Panfilo Lacson and Gregorio Honasan, to mention just the core, can succeed anew in firing up the poor, igniting them to bloody mutiny.

I think the Left, however factionalized, can do that job better. They are natural allies, the poor and the Left, and this will be the big program of the military-police establishment. The Left missed out on May 1, as they missed out in joining the swirling multitudes that rushed to Ninoy Aquino’s remains when he was assassinated by the Marcos dictatorship. Although this time they did not miss out on People Power II.

When and if the social volcano explodes, only the military can quell chaos and anarchy, and they may be tempted to take over if only for the interregnum. But the military is hardly equipped — intellectually and administratively — to rule a nation whose turbulence is caused by extreme poverty. And if the military should deign to subjugate the poor and crack down mercilessly on the Left, the nation will blow up into civil war. That is why I think this early, there should be a realignment of political forces. Better still, there should emerge a Third Force, a Rally of the Filipino People that will smash and destroy the corrupt political system, corrupt already when Ferdinand Marcos took over power, corrupt to the core when he ruled for 20 years, corrupt even more so now because the legacy of corruption has become more entrenched than Mammon on his throne.

The New Politics of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo hasn’t worked. Not at all. A New Politics can only arise if there is a great leader, with a great mind and great purpose who can bend the nation, history and events to his or her will. Such was the potential Ferdinand Marcos but he preferred to corrupt himself, his family, his cronies, and thus greatness escaped his grasp. Such was Ninoy Aquino but the Marcos forces killed him, because if they didn’t Ninoy would have torn them apart. History had given him the upper hand. GMA just can’t hack it.

But not to worry.