PHILIPPINES: Call made for provisional revolutionary government

June 29, 2005
Issue 

Ben Reid

There is growing political turmoil in the Philippines as the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has become increasingly besieged by critics. Broad coalitions of political forces are beginning to emerge calling for her ouster and even a "provisional revolutionary government".

The crisis follows the surfacing of a tape recording of an alleged conversation between Arroyo and election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. The conversation supposedly details vote rigging that occurred in the May 2004 presidential election, which Arroyo won.

While Arroyo has remained silent about the taped conversation, her supporters have claimed that the tape has been altered to imply that there was election cheating. However, on June 22, at the beginning of a congressional inquiry into the controversy, two members of the House of Representatives from the province of Cebu — Clevel Martinez and Eduard Gullaz — declared the taped conversion authentic.

It was in Cebu that Arroyo defeated the late actor Fernando Poe by more than a million votes in the 2004 presidential election — the largest margin she garnered over Poe in all of the provinces throughout the country.

The tape recording was presented at a press conference in Manila on June 10 by Samuel Ong, the former deputy chief of the National Bureau of Investigation. The NBI responded by laying charges of sedition against Ong, who subsequently went into hiding.

The recording is in such demand that it has been become the most popular ringtone used by Filipinos on their mobile phones.

Earlier in the same week as Ong's press conference, witnesses at a Senate inquiry accused Arroyo's husband, son and brother-in-law of receiving pay-offs from illegal gambling operations.

Ironically, Arroyo first came to power in 2001 after the government of then-president Joseph Estrada collapsed after revelations of widespread collusion between his administration and illegal gambling operations.

Estrada, currently on trial for embezzling US$80 million during his presidency, was impeached in November 2000 after massive public protests. Before Estrada's impeachment, Arroyo, who was then Estrada's vice-president, defected to the opposition.

Two years ago, Arroyo promised not to stand in the May 2004 presidential election. At the time, her husband was being investigated by the Senate over his handling of election campaign funds. Her prospects of winning the 2004 election did not seem good.

The attempt to try Ong for sedition is part of a deepening trend to repression of political dissent. Unprecedented numbers of journalists, lawyers and political activists have become murder and kidnap victims.

Independence Day celebrations over the June 11-13 weekend coincided with modest protest mobilisations, the largest of which was a rally and march in Manila by 5000 people on June 11, despite an official ban on anti-government protest rallies.

Left and progressive movements have begun to seize the opportunities presented by the crisis to campaign for a radical change in the direction of Filipino politics.

Waves of popular revolt since the return of constitutional government in 1986 have invariably been deflected back into support for one or other camp of the country's corrupt political elite. Seeking to avoid a similar fate befalling any popular revolt against Arroyo's regime, veteran left activist Francisco "Dodong" Nemenzo, a former president of the University of the Philippines (UP), has publicly called for the left to "start from the beginning" with the objective of replacing the Arroyo regime with a "provisional revolutionary government".

On June 16, Nemenzo told a press conference held at the UP's Quezon City campus, that a snap election would be useless because the elite would still control the government. "What we really need to do is call for a provisional revolutionary government", he said. "We have to reduce the power of the elite. Only then can democracy have a chance to flourish in this country."

Even if Arroyo was impeached, Nemenzo said, those who would take part in the political exercise had "very low credibility". The only recourse left to the people is to take "extra-constitutional means" of taking power, he said.

Nemenzo said that the UP Alliance for Arroyo's Removal (UP Aware), composed of students, teachers, and administrative, research and support staff, based its call for a popular revolt to remove Arroyo on the evidence that her victory in the May 2004 election was achieved by fraudulent means.

A similar call for a popular revolt leading to a radical change of regime was made on June 14 by Wilson da Silva, the president of the Sanlakas federation of people's organisations.

"Learning from past experiences, however, the people have become more discerning now than during the Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 uprisings [a reference to the 1986 and 2000 mass street mobilisations], not because they renounce the concept of people power but mainly because it failed them on many occasions", Wilson said. "They are tired of the mere merry-go-round of trapo [traditional politician] rule.

"The next time the people act together in a people power type uprising, they would ensure that it would be by themselves and for themselves. That it would be for systemic change and not just a facelift in the office of the president."

From Green Left Weekly, June 29, 2005.
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