De Quiros' Column

There's The Rub : I refuse

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

OVER THE PAST couple of weeks, I've heard a lament from several groups of people, representative of the eight out of 10 Filipinos who want Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) out of Malacañang. The tack of embarrassing the President sufficiently to make her resign, they say, hasn't worked. You cannot appeal to the conscience of someone who has no conscience. You cannot shame someone who is shameless. You cannot beg someone, who can hear only the roar of her driving ambition, to hear the cry of a wounded country.

The usurper in Malacañang, they say, isn't going to leave it without being physically forced to. She will drag the country down in flames before she packs up her bags hurriedly and flies to her version of Paoay or Hawaii. Unfortunately, the groups lament even more, people do not seem to want to take to the streets anymore to mount another People Power. Where does that leave us?

Well, first off, I don't know that Filipinos are loath to mount another People Power anymore. From where I stand, I see that Filipinos are loath only to produce another GMA with People Power. Supremely ironically, in a country that has more ironies than karaokes, GMA's greatest weakness is also her greatest strength. People balk at taking to the streets to remove her for fear of producing someone like her. One is tempted to add, "or worse than her," but that concept strains the imagination.

That doesn't mean Filipinos no longer want an Edsa, it only means Filipinos no longer want the same Edsa. They want a different Edsa, one that makes things better. I am not discounting the possibility of people taking to the streets again in the next few months to oust a tyranny. Aug. 21 and Sept. 21 are flash point dates, the first recalling the murder of Ninoy Aquino in 1983 and the bombing of Plaza Miranda in 1971, the second marking the anniversary of martial law in 1972. All are testaments to the ruthlessness of those who crave power so badly they will cling to it at all costs.

Quite apart from that, there is GMA herself whose more frequent public appearances are bound to do what the exhortations of her enemies have so far failed to-stoke the public to uncontrollable fury. She asserts more things like she was the victim rather than the beneficiary of cheating, and she will single-handedly spark People Power-against her. If I recall right, during the twilight days of martial law, customers in pubs improved their aim in darts by putting a picture of Marcos in the center of the dartboards.

But quite apart from this, we do not entirely lack for other weapons to force the squatter in Malacañang to go. There is always civil disobedience, and I for one am hereby proclaiming I am embarking on it. My principle is simple and basic: An illegitimate president refuses to give up the powers of the President of the Philippines, I refuse to observe my duties as a citizen of the Philippines.

My reason for this is just as simple and basic. GMA is not the President of this country because she cheated in the elections. It does not matter whether she "actually won" or not, the fact of cheating voids any claim to the presidency. You catch a student cheating in the final exams, you do not ask whether he could have passed anyway even without cheating, you expel him. GMA herself has admitted to being the voice on the tape. That is the one thing she may not escape. Talking to Garcillano is cheating. Plotting to pad votes is cheating. Prescribing your own (non-) punishment for cheating is cheating. People who cheat do not go to Malacañang, they go to Muntinlupa.

She and her Cabinet may go on to talk about reforming the country, she and Tabako may go on to talk about Charter change, she and her allies (including those in media) may go on to talk about her "actually winning," Hello Garci aside, but none of it will change the incontrovertible fact that she lied, cheated and stole, and is therefore not the President of this country. To paraphrase Clinton's famous slogan against Bush the Elder: It's not the economy, stupid. It's you.

In the past, I've always declared that I might not like the president we had, but I was obliged to serve him by the fact that he was voted by the people. I say now that I do not like the person we have in Malacañang and I am moreover not obliged to serve her by the fact that she was not voted by the people. I refuse to be conscripted into military service, or allow my kids to be so, on the strength of her declarations of war. I refuse to owe allegiance to her or her Cabinet and render public service if they call upon me to do so.

Most of all, I refuse to pay my taxes.

Of course, my taxes are automatically deducted from me, a situation I protest most vigorously at this time. I'm being squeezed at both ends, by high prices below and more taxes above. The latter I was apprised of only recently by Inquirer Accounting. It is infuriating having hard-earned money seized from you particularly with the thought of Mike Arroyo flying around in gleeful exile. But if I get additional income, I will refuse to declare it, though heaven knows sidelines are harder to find than truth these days: You know honest work throw it my way. If I inherit a fortune from a long-lost uncle in China, I will refuse to divulge it. I will refuse to have even my patience taxed any longer.

I do not mind being arrested for this, if only to demonstrate one thing. Which is the difference between how this government treats citizens who openly defy this country's tax laws for the most moral reasons, and presidential candidates who grossly violate this country's electoral laws for the most venal ones.

A government that persists in ruling without the mandate of heaven or earth, or both, is a tyranny. I have only one thing to say to it:

I refuse.