[Newspoint] Falsifying history
Vergel Santos’ brief are all bunched up at his ankles again over Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s memoir, Deus Ex Machina. The former President, who holds the distinction or infamy, depending if you are on her side or not, of being the most unpopular President in history.
Yet she is also recognized as having crafted economic policy reforms which enabled the Philippines to avoid the worst of the 2008 financial crisis and enabled the economy to grow consistently during her nine years as President and beyond, extending to the Aquino and Duterte administration’s which followed hers.
GMA continues to be a player in the national political scene despite the ups and downs of her political career when she joined government as an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry during the Cory administration. She went on to win as Senator and Vice-President before ascending to the Presidency in the civil-military coup which ousted President Joseph Ejercito Estrada in 2001. She won another term in 2004 despite the protestations of the her erstwhile patron, Cory Aquino. She reveals in her memoir, that it was actually Cardinal Sin who told her she should run for another term despite the agreement that she would only serve the unexpired term of President Estrada.
GMA is in the cross hairs of the opposition again for being instrumental in the formation of the Marcos-Duterte ticket for the 2022 election. Based on the surveys, it appears that 2022 will put to shame Erap’s margin of victory in 1998 as Marcos-Duterte appears to be headed to a majority win at the polls despite having five other rivals for the two top posts in the country. The Marcos-Arroyo-Duterte-Estrada alliance will dominate again for the next six years much to the consternation of the opposition who has been unsuccessful in getting back in the driver’s seat in the past two election cycles.
Deus ex machina (/ˌdeɪəs ɛks ˈmækɪnə, – ˈmɑːk-/DAY-əs ex-MA(H)K-in-ə,Latin: [ˈdɛ.ʊs ɛks ˈmaːkʰɪnaː]; plural: dei ex machina; English “god out of the machine”) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function is generally to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or act as a comedic device. Wikipedia
The title of her memoirs apparently refers to the resolution of the Constitutional crisis precipitated by the walkout of the House Prosecution Panel during the Estrada Impeachment Trial at the Senate, led by Joker Arroyo and Nani Perez. This led to the so-called Edsa Dos, where “people power” was again invoked to oust a duly-elected President despite the fact that there was no legal basis to do so. The Presiding Officer of the impeachment trial, then Chief Justice Hilario Davide, did not bother to summon the House Prosecution Panel back to the Senate as required by the rules of impeachment. Instead, Davide swore in GMA as President at the EDSA Shrine and left Davide having to invent the doctrine of “constructive resignation” to provide the legal basis for Arroyo’s legitimacy as the successor of Estrada.
The second even where deus ex machina is again applicable in Arroyo’s political career is her election to the Presidency in 2004. Again, this was not without controversy as there as the Hello Garci scandal. She was caught on tape speaking to Comelec Regional Director Virgilio Garcillano. The tape was released by NBI Deputy Director Samuel Ong which he claimed was given to him by Sgt. Vidal Doble of the AFP’s ISAFP. GMA also survived this crisis and eventually went on to finish her six-year term despite threats of a coup from the then Magdalo Group of Antonio Trillanes and disgruntled AFP officers led by Gen. Danilo Lim, Gen. Renato Miranda and Col. Ariel Querubin.
Arroyo was the second President to be detained after her term ended as she followed in the footsteps of Erap. A vindictive Noynoy Aquino, through his Justice Secretary, Leila De Lima, held GMA in detention at the Veterans Memorial Hospital for the five of his six year term. GMA resurfaced after the win of Rodrigo Duterte, whose candidacy she backed in the 2016 polls. She went on to become House Speaker in her last term as Pampanga representative, becoming the only official to have headed both the Executive and the Legislative in her political career.
The opposition makes much of historical revisionism and political rehabilitation even if they are themselves guilty of the same. Ninoy Aquino was as much a warlord as any politico in the 50s and 60s. It was only during after martial law and his US exile was his image rehabilitated as as Christian Social Democrat. The late national artist for literature, F. Sionil Jose, confirmed that Ninoy was in bed with both the CIA and the communists led by Jose Maria Sison and actually instigated both the communist insurgency and the Muslim separatist movement in Mindanao led by Nur Misuari.
The impending Marcos restoration, provided he is not disqualified by the Supreme Court post-election, is the proverbial slap on the opposition’s face should it materialize. But the opposition has no one else to blame but themselves for making so many enemies of former allies whom they double-crossed, including Arroyo. Estrada and Arroyo have let bygones be bygones and are on even better terms than when they were President and Vice-President.
The political acumen of GMA is such that she even does a mea culpa to a former arch foe in the person of Sen. Ping Lacson. Arroyo admits that she was driven by fake testimonies to believe that Lacson was guilty of malfeasance which led to the failure of her efforts to reconcile with him politically after his unceremonious departure as PNP Chief at the time of Estrada’s ouster. Lacson withdrew support from Estrada when he realized that his enemies within the PNP had aligned themselves with Arroyo in the ouster plot and found himself without any viable option to protect the duly-elected President.
As one who is a martial law baby, I have seen politicians come and go through the years. We have never judged our politicians on the basis of their leadership but mostly on their travails as they walk in the path of history as it is being made. We are awed instead of being critical thinkers who decide whom to vote for on the basis of platforms and principled stand on issues.
In this election cycle, Marcos’ theme of unity is compelling only because of the narrative that the opposition has spun against his family and how the people are tired of it because they have realized that Apo Lakay is not all bad because of the legacy he left which Filipinos continue to benefit from up to today. The same is true with the Iron Butterfly, Imeldific. The prospect of her triumphant return to the Palance she was ignnominioiusly driven from in 1986 titilliates those who are in the senior years who remember her with fondness because of how she transformed Metro Manila when she was its Governor.
The opposition can spin their history all they want but most of it is recent. PNoy did much of the damage to the Aquino legacy during his Presidency. It was the straw which broke the camel’s back and led Filipinos straight into the arms of Rodrigo Duterte, a man whose political career was launched by the largesse which Cory Aquino dispensed after she came to power.
The old Jewish saying, “what goes around, comes around” is indeed apt. Maybe after events have come full circle that the vicious cycle of the Aquino versus Marcos narrative, will finally come to an end and will be the break of a new dawn for the Philippines.
Of course, this is all wishful thinking for we all know that the opposition will never cooperate with Marcos in his efforts at recovery from the pandemic which requires unity. Perhaps, the opposition will be awed if somehow the deus ex machina in the case of the Marcos’ is an overwhelming victory never before seen in the political history of the country.
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