At Large : A map for the 'middle forces'
Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
"C4T" is a gathering of civil-society organizations that began life weeks before the "dramatic" events of July 8. The groups had gathered to discuss civil-society options in the wake of the twin controversies over alleged links of government officials, including members of the President's family, to the "jueteng" illegal lottery racket, as well as the tapes of tapped telephone conversations between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and an official of the Commission on Elections, widely believed to be Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.
At the time of its founding, the group was known as "Citizens for Truth," but given the swift and dramatic momentum generated by recent events, especially after a meeting held last week to consolidate civil society's stance, "C4T" has now come to mean "Citizens for TRIO," the last an acronym for a number of options for regime change, to wit: Truth Commission, Resign, Impeach and Oust, this last option preferably through "non-violent and democratic" means.
"TRIO" is not meant to describe a sequence of events, or to give the impression that these four modes of breaking the current impasse are mutually exclusive. Nor are all four means to be undertaken alone by the groups assembled at the meeting. At the moment, for instance, the Bishops-Businessmen's Conference is taking the lead in organizing the Truth Commission, while the impeachment of the President is proceeding apace, with the political opposition leading the charge in the House. The option for "resign," on the other hand, lies entirely in the President's hands, although civil-society groups could a play a role in facilitating this outcome through protest actions and other ways of influencing public opinion. In this so-called "middle" or "centrist" forces will have to do some catching up, as supporters of former President Estrada as well as the Left have already shown the way.
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INTERESTINGLY enough, the option of Charter change, which politicians, especially House Speaker Jose de Venecia and former President Fidel Ramos, are pushing, was not adopted by the gathering.
Personally, I think the proposal to address the current crisis by modifying the Constitution is a non-starter. For one, it won't help the nation find out the answers to the questions on most everybody's minds: Did the President tell the entire truth when she "confessed" about her "lapse of judgment"? Did she indeed cheat during the 2004 elections? And if she cheated, does it mean she was not the rightful winner in the polls?
Changing our form of government now will not guarantee any improvement in governance. And changing our system of leadership from presidential to parliamentarian will be meaningless while the underpinnings of government remain rotten and corrupt. It will be like preparing to move into a decrepit house that's about to fall apart by re-painting the exterior and doing minor repairs, without shoring up the foundations.
The time for constitutional reform is not now, while a political crisis is brewing. Rather, we should wait for the crisis to be resolved, through any of the "TRIO" alternatives, and then perhaps wait for the situation to stabilize and for a new leadership to gain a firm footing before tinkering with the basic law of the land.
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SEEKING to provide a guidepost to the civil-society folks gathered at the "C4T" meeting, a respected NGO leader, who remains anonymous only because I didn't have time to clear this with him, read a paper he called "Quo Vadis, Middle Forces?" This is how he described the situation we face today:
"I have been attending meetings asking the question: Where are we in this crisis? I have two kinds of answers. In terms of the narrowly defined crisis concerning the fate of PGMA [President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo], we are on the stage where we think we still have political, or even moral, choices to make that can drive events and outcomes ... In another two to three months, this window of apparent luxury in political or moral choices will narrow and real events -- economic distress, mass actions, military movements -- will dictate severely constricted and circumscribed options.
"There is also another answer from a larger perspective. If we look at the data concerning public opinion and popular will, however, we are in fact already in a stage of what I call a 'governance vacuum,' where people want their political system to provide leadership for change, but for a combination of reasons this leadership is not forthcoming. This is a stage of grave danger to our nation because once the imperatives of survival grows and become more insistent, it will not be the forces with the best and most correct solution that could determine the outcome but rather those who are most prepared and ready to offer a viable solution.
"In our country's history, those most ready with a viable solution to political crisis have often been the vested interests because their goals are clear and their methods decisive. Reform forces with diffused goals and indecisive methods are the first casualties of intensified crisis and their usual palliative resolutions."
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"IN MY view, what the people want is a viable, sustainable and credible political solution to the present crisis that also allows us to build on this solution for future stability, growth and strength. They want a solution that can move us out of this current PGMA crisis but establishes a governing capability with some traction to deliver better results down the long haul. This is the current demand under conditions of apparent luxury of choices: a short-term solution with long-term viability. Once conditions worsen to make the imperative of choice more pressing and urgent, our people could settle for any short-term solution that gains ground whatever might be its long-term prospects."
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