It is hard not to feel some sympathy for beleaguered Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she declared that the allegations she cheated in last year’s presidential election should be dealt with by due process and she would be happy to be impeached and have the case heard legally. Unfortunately the law may work this way but politics does not. The calls for her resignation over the issue are now growing. First, seven Cabinet ministers quit on her, then ex-President Corazon Aquino called for her to step down. Slowly the sights are being set on Arroyo, who has become a lame duck president. Whatever the constitutional merits of her argument that she should stay, the reality is that her options are narrowing by the hour. Even a face-saving temporary handover of power to Vice President Noli de Castro, while the charges against her were investigated, now looks unlikely.

Arroyo’s fall from grace represents another disappointment for ordinary Filipinos who hoped for so much from her when she first took office in January 2001. Ironically she was the deputy of the discredited Joseph Estrada and came to office when he was forced from power by a popular revolt. Estrada’s ouster had many similarities to the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Now as crowds fill Manila’s streets again, history may be repeating itself a third time. None of the country’s four post-Marcos presidents has managed to address the burning issues of poverty, unemployment and corruption, despite firm promises that they would do so. Arroyo was no exception. But her limited economic reforms only served to increase the hardship of the poor without solid benefits. As under Marcos, the Philippines’ elite continued to get richer with little change for the great majority. Too few foreign investors have seen the Philippines as a potent base from which to access Southeast Asian market. As a result endless talk about the country becoming an Asian tiger, has remained just talk.

International investors will not be encouraged by what must now seem endemic political instability. New administrations arrive on a popular tidal wave of hope and dissolve as the wave recedes into disillusionment. Ever since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos the people have sought a leader who will bring about real change in the quality of their lives. They have been let down because their choice of president, like Estrada, was incapable of delivering on exciting promises or like Aquino, Ramos and Arroyo was unable to persuade the ruling elite, from which they themselves came, to back fundamental change that would diminish its wealth and power.

The country’s enthusiasm for its rambunctious democracy in the last 20 years may be on the wane while the tactic of massive street process could be developing into a habit. The danger is that these street revolutions may not remain velvet. The angry crowd is never an accurate political weapon, while elements in the armed forces may be despairing of democratic politics and outsiders may be tempted to meddle in the confusion. The man in the street has heard the promises of change for two decades. Now he wants a leader who will deliver.