Too soon

In May 2010, I flew with a team to Manila from Kuala Lumpur to cover the presidential elections that Benigno Aquino III would eventually win. We set up our live position near the PICC in Manila and reported live almost every hour, with commentary and analysis provided by various guests. I remember particularly one off-air conversation with Karim Raslan in which I suggested that the Philippines was ripe for a populist like Hugo Chavez. Sure enough, we got our own version in 2016 with Rodrigo Duterte, whose popularity appeared to be a repudiation of traditional land-owning clan-run elite politics. At this point, he appears to be adding his own family into the mix of vested interests.

The death of Benigno Aquino III who was “destined to lead the country” (according to his campaign website) has come as politics in the Philippines begins to gather momentum for another election. It feels very much too soon to tell whether his death and indeed his life will have an impact on the elections due in 2022 or indeed on history itself. Nevertheless, his death itself has come too soon, or at least sooner than most men of his background and wealth have come to expect, that is, if they don’t get assassinated first.

Another of my lasting memories of the late president is when he first declared his candidacy. Again, I happened to have been assigned to cover the funeral of his mother, the other late President Aquino. I kept an eye and ear on ABS-CBN’s special reports. The outpouring of grief from her family, friends and followers in the midst of the rituals merged with the myth-making that became the narrative of the coverage. This was a Special Event in the History of the Nation. At the mausoleum, the production team was figuring out whether or not to place a small point-of-view camera inside the crypt where the coffin containing President Corazon Aquino’s remains would be placed, so that the public could watch live as she reached her final resting place.

Soon afterwards, the next future late President Aquino would declare his candidacy in a mission to carry forward his parents’ legacy. My friends joked that in the coming months, were Imelda Marcos to die, there would be a similar outpouring of national grief after which one of her children would also declare their own mission to extend their mother’s legacy. Soon after, they quipped, perhaps Joseph Estrada too would pass and another scion announce their plan to glorify the clan.

The Duterte administration and its backers’ animosity towards the Aquino family and its followers, including ABS-CBN and the Lopez family, is likely to prevent mythologizing on the same scale on the national airwaves. Nevertheless, I will be watching, popcorn in hand, to deconstruct the proceedings as another episode unfolds in the clan vs clan saga that is Philippines politics.

What of the coming elections? As it stands, outsiders like myself are likely to tend to look at them symbolically as a test of democracy itself as well as the people’s verdict on what Duterte has made of his time in office. Looking back at that moment with Karim, I think my moment of successful prophecy was born out of a sense that there would be a backlash after decades of politics that most people simply didn’t identify with. Like Trump in the US after Obama, Duterte was something of a popular backlash against the liberalism of the Aquino years. Now that his term is over and he can’t be re-elected, will he be able to confer his support to an heir apparent, and will that be enough for victory?

History is said to be written by the victors, but we don’t even know who the victors will be at this point; besides, historical narratives change all the time. For me, Aquino’s lasting legacy is about reaching an accommodation that would allow finally for peace between the state and insurgents who had been in conflict since the Marcos years.

In the preceding years, I had followed the war in Mindanao as a reporter, bearing witness to the immense deprivation and harm that under-development, death and destruction had wrought on that part of the country.

My first encounter was as far back as 1986 when Benigno III’s mother had fearlessly traveled to Jolo City, accompanied by Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, who looked a lot more nervous and sweaty than Corazon Aquino. Before they arrived, we sat with Aquino’s Presidential Security Guard as they secured the convent where the talks were to take place. There was a moment of panic when Nur Misuari arrived with an entourage of long-haired MNLF soldiers in little open top jeeps, draped with bandoleers, aviator sunglasses and Philip Morris cigarettes, in far greater numbers than had been agreed.

There were many stops and starts in the peace process after that. Many more deaths, many more people displaced. But in 2014, after a flurry of intense negotiations, Benigno Aquino III co-signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It is a lasting testament to him and his administration.

Miriam Coronel Ferrer became the first female negotiator to sign a final peace accord with a rebel group. She posted the following:

“PNoy understood what had to be achieved to bring peace to Mindanao. He brought over the entire government to this goal. He exacted due diligence from all of us, the same rigor he imposed upon himself for any policy decision he had to make. He knew the need to get all around support, telling us to address all the unknowns that create all sorts of fears around the Bangsamoro question. He wanted a just and honest deal. His injunctions: commit to what we can implement, implement what we commit; learn from the lessons of the past. He invested and dipped into his political capital to uphold the process in key moments … but using only the tools of persuasion (no threats, no violence, no more pork), legislators no longer traveled the extra mile with him, more concerned as they were with the upcoming election.

“There were things that I wish he had done… But he had his reasons which then and now I can only defer to.

“Just as we look with greater appreciation today on the quality of leadership of and what former President Fidel V. Ramos achieved during his time, so will the future bring further to light the kind of qualities possessed and accomplishments achieved by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, sir.”