Arroyo seizes the initiative Amando Doronila Inquirer
August 29, 2007
Contrary to the claim of Sen. Francis Escudero that the reopening of the Garci tapes inquiry in the Senate has solidified the fractured opposition, it has in fact given President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo an opportunity to turn the tables on her Senate adversaries. Instead of producing an issue around which the opposition senators would close ranks, the bid by Sen. Panfilo Lacson to revive the tape scandal has allowed the President to seize the initiative by shifting the issue to the economic argument, thereby painting the opposition senators as a bunch of obstructionists standing in the way of giving momentum to what she has claimed as the “highest level” of gross domestic product growth since 1991, based on the 2007 first quarter growth of 6.9 percent.
It is not the business of the opposition to provide the President with the weapon to skewer it and to shift the public debate to issues that make her look good and that damn opposition members as a gang of unpatriotic rascals out to sabotage economic development. But this is exactly what happened after Lacson presented in a privilege speech a testimony by a former military intelligence agent that he had wiretapped phone conversations between the President and former Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano on the results of the canvassing of the 2004 presidential election returns. Lacson’s call prompted the Senate to propose a new inquiry into the tapes by convening a caucus to decide whether or not to refer the case to the Senate committee of the whole for a rehearing.
Malacañang promptly went on a counter-offensive. Not only did the President ask the Senate not to go ahead with a new inquiry, the Palace also warned that it would invoke Executive Order 464, which bans officials and military officers from testifying at congressional hearings. The President also lashed at the opposition as “titans of hate” driven by the “politics of destruction.” In a demagogic tack, worthy of a rabble-rouser, she said: “I have a country to run. I have terrorists to fight. I have a peace to win. And a bright future to secure for these children. I embrace work and just leave to the titans of hate to have a monopoly of the politics of destruction.”
She launched this tirade after hearing grievances of poor residents of Barangay Sta. Teresita in Quezon City, an ideal setting for creating demons toward whom to direct public dissatisfaction and opprobrium. With this rhetoric, the President managed to revive the specter of legislative gridlock and paint the Senate anew as an obstructionist institution.
The claim of Escudero, who is touted as one of the promising bright Young Turks of the opposition, that the opposition has found a bonding element in the revival of the tape scandal is without basis. The reopening of the issue has allowed the President to draw the opposition into a debate over her economic performance in an attempt to rebuild her legitimacy that was damaged by the tape scandal.
In this propaganda battle, the opposition is losing by default through its ineptitude since the economic debate gives the President the edge by refocusing it to an area where she can do battle on her own terms. She hopes the economic argument would blur the tape issue.
The revival of the issue only served to call attention to the fragile basis of opposition solidarity. It had the effect of exposing the emptiness of their winning a slender majority in the Senate in the May election. In fact, the pro-administration bloc, which holds the balance of power in the Senate, has tended to close ranks in opposing the reopening of the investigation in the belief that it would not introduce fresh and strong evidence to prove that the President’s intervention in the canvassing of votes through her conversations with Garcillano led to the tampering of the returns and to her proclamation as winner by more than one million votes, but would be an open-ended inquiry that will divert the Senate from tackling its legislative agenda and priority bills.
Already the Senate has been polarized over whether to reinvestigate the issue as a whole. Pro-administration senators are wary over reopening the hearings, fearing that the playing of illegally obtained evidence would, in the words of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, lead to serious consequences, including the “perpetual absolute disqualification from public office” of lawmakers participating in the inquiry.
The reinvestigation has not only reinforced public negative perception that the Senate has become a forum whose priority is investigation over more productive legislation. It has also reopened a new front in the war between the Senate and the executive over EO 464. In either of the two issues, the leadership of Senate President Manuel Villar is on the line and may prove to be short-lived. Villar sits on the shaky coalition of a new majority made up of nine administration senators and six opposition senators. It is uncertain that the six opposition senators would align themselves with the eight other opposition senators when these issues are put to a vote.
In any case, the underlying issue in the reopening of the Garci tapes scandal boils down to whether the economic argument promoted by the President would prevail over the move to get to the bottom of the Garci tapes scandal in order to arrive at the truth. Both approaches seek to determine the legitimacy of the Arroyo regime. Both entail costs, but an open-ended inquiry can only lead to impasse.
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E-mail: aedoronila@westnet.com.au
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