The attempted coup against President Gloria Arroyo has resulted in her declaring a state of emergency and initiating the arrest of alleged conspirators because of what she describes as “a clear threat to the nation”. In that Arroyo is the elected president since May 2004 elections this is clearly true. However, it is not quite that simple.
As a result of compromising recordings of telephone calls between the president and an election official during the 2004 count, there has been growing unease at the validity of the outcome. These sentiments have been compounded by the lackluster performance of the Arroyo administration since she stepped from the vice presidency to replace discredited President Joseph Estrada in the so-called People Power II uprising of January 2001. Though she is a US-trained economist, Arroyo has signally failed to bring about the economic miracle for which so many Filipinos hoped. Initially her lack of charisma was discounted on the assumption that she could bring a technocratic approach to much-needed economic and social reform. She has managed neither to inspire nor change the country. The problem is that the Philippines has now seen two People Power revolutions, the first of which ousted the autocratic Marcos regime in 1986 in favor of Corazon Aquino, without any substantial improvement in the country’s economic affairs. Financial power remains with the same relatively small elite from whom all four of the post-Marcos presidents, with the exception of Estrada, have been drawn.
Despite her poor performance, Arroyo has continued to enjoy the backing of most of the Filipino business community and perhaps, more importantly, of the highly influential Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless, her position has been undermined because of the damage to her credibility caused by the 2004 election count phone call. Members of her Cabinet insisted that she apologize for what she characterized as a “lapse of judgment” but what in fact under Filipino law is clearly an illegal act. She then managed to avoid impeachment by adroit use of the considerable political patronage that accrues to the president’s office. The more important question, however, ought not to be her political survival but the ability of the Philippines to become both politically stable and economically prosperous. By some analyses, the president has retained the backing of the business community and the church only because there is no other obvious candidate for her office.
This latest crisis, which is the third actual coup attempt against her in a country where coup rumors are commonplace, perhaps presents Arroyo with her last chance to save her position. How she handles the considerable powers that come to her under the state of emergency will be all-important. It could be that a little public humility over her poor economic record and a truly imaginative new program to improve it, will calm rising public anger and give hope to her disappointed supporters. What absolutely must not happen is that the emergency powers be used merely to bolster a failing presidency and trigger a third People Power rising.
