MANILA, 13 May— The administration of President Gloria Arroyo these past ten days has been spinning the news so fast to justify its actions following the May Day riots that my head and those of many Filipinos were whirling in disbelief.
For a moment there it seemed like the slickest spin-doctors from the former Clinton administration had been loaned to GMA’s government by her former Georgetown University classmate.
The scale of intermeshing between Philippine government officials and the media, I think, reached unprecedented levels in this country’s history in the past two weeks.
Before the riots on May 1 were even over, government officials were already telling TV networks that many of the rioters were high on drugs and alcohol. (As it turned out, only around 30 percent of those arrested tested positive for drugs or alcohol)
This was presumably to reinforce the nasty image of former President Joseph Estrada allegedly being in cahoots with major drug dealers and smugglers.
Just nine days after the riots, the banner headline story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer screamed, “Coup financiers named, PNP report says suspects into drug dealing, smuggling, gambling.”
The report named names, but hardly any of the accused were contacted by the paper to comment on the charges.
What is amazing is that the Philippine National Police hasn’t even yet filed charges against the numerous Filipino-Chinese businessmen who supposedly contributed to the alleged P1 billion coup fund.
So how can the PNP leak this report to the press ahead filing charges?
In any other country, the accused would be able to sue the Inquirer and PNP for defamation and be awarded damages.
Indeed, PNP chief General Leandro Mendoza denied the next day ever receiving such a report, making the Inquirer’s star reporter Juliet Javellana look especially stupid.
Why the paper ran it as a screaming lead story is beyond me. Probably they just got carried away in their Estrada-bashing.
This points to a disturbingly cozy relationship between the GMA administration and a sector of the media that is all too willing to be spoon-fed biased and suspicious news leads that they don’t even bother to check.
This should be of concern to every Filipino interested in knowing the truth and justice.
I have never been a fan of Estrada and his style of governance, but I find it necessary to speak out when the Arroyo partisans twist the facts so much and a gullible press laps it up no questions asked.
Secretary of Justice Hernando Perez is supposedly the legal brains of the Arroyo government, and it is he who has come up with the various legal crackdowns that the president has ordered.
The most controversial was that of the president declaring a state of rebellion in Metro-Manila, a status that Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago rightly pointed out does not exist in the Philippine Constitution.
Perez was stretching his legal interpretation of the Constitution so that the president would not have to go to Congress to get permission for warrantless arrests and the banning of protest gatherings.
The legally dubious warrentless arrests of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and former ambassador Ernesto Maceda on rebellion charges were undertaken, while Sen. Gringo Honasan and senatorial candidate Panfilo Lacson went into hiding to avoid a similar fate.
While Enrile and Maceda were out on bail a few days after being detained at Camp Crame, the PNP finally had to admit on Tuesday, May 8, that it was dropping the warrant of arrests for Lacson and Honasan after a panel of legal experts chastised the police force and pointed out that since the state of rebellion had already been lifted a few days earlier, the warrantless arrests of the two would be illegal.
What is most amazing in all of this is the way the Supreme Court has allowed itself to be taken over lock, stock and barrel by the GMA administration.
They have kept mum about every legal stretch dreamt up by Perez, their silence implying tacit approval.
Whoever is coaching Arroyo is a real expert in spin. First she visited Estrada in his Laguna jail on May 3, allegedly to extend a hand and help heal the nation.
Her aides made sure TV cameras were there to record her visit and flash it on the six o’clock news.
Estrada, the good actor that he is, smiled forcedly, but his son Jinggoy couldn’t hide his feelings, scowling in the background like a spoilt child.
The truth was that Estrada only accepted to receive her after the Cebu archbishop insisted on it.
According to Estrada’s wife, Dra. Luisa “Loi” Ejercito, nothing came of the visit.
She also complained of the way she and her daughter Jackie Lopez were being subjected to humiliating body searches whenever they visit Estrada.
She said the female guards were especially rough in shoving up the breasts of Jackie, allegedly to look for anything concealed.
Next, Gloria trooped off to the Western Police District headquarters to visit a select group of the arrested May 1 rioters.
She was shown on TV kneeling down to talk with them and even joked with one in Tagalog not to fight anymore.
In fact, according to Estrada sources, her visit lasted only a few minutes, just long enough for the cameras to film her shaking a few hands.
Plus, the select few were given showers and cleaned up before being presented to her. This brings me to the ridiculous bail amount of P200,000 that each poor rioter was expected to pay to gain freedom until a trial date, if the charges were not dropped before then.
The most recent spin act of the president was to order the withdrawal of the negative PPC campaign ads that specifically attacked Puwersa ng Masa candidates, ostensibly because she thought it was a time for healing. The ads, which would have done proud the nastiest of Republican spin doctors in the US, targeted Defensor Santiago, showing her as sneering, elitist and unbalanced; Lacson and Honasan.
The final ad in the foursome ad package showed all the Puwersa candidates lined up on a campaign stage with text and a voice-over saying: “Are you really going to vote for them again?!”
Of course, by the time the ads were ordered pulled, most of the nation had seen them on TV for a day, with most TV network news shows already having highlighted them in their broadcasts because such amazingly negative ads had never been done before in the Philippines.
Which leaves us with the anticipation of seeing just how well PPC candidates do in the May 14 election.
It also remains to be seen what charges will really stick to pro-Estrada personalities once the smoke of the furious spin of this campaign season dissipates and Arroyo’s lawyers are forced to present their so-called evidence in a court of law.
This is the day that all involved in this power struggle, be they Arroyoor Estrada loyalists, hope to see.
Until then, all are encouraged to take their news sources with a huge dash of salt!
