Arroyo’s legitimacy: An issue that simply won’t go away

(UPDATED) “THE die is cast,” so declared Brigadier General Danilo Lim, claiming that now is the time to “end the sufferings and miseries inflicted upon us by the illegitimate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government and start a new life and a new Philippines.”

Lim read from a statement, contents of which echoed his aborted supposed withdrawal of support from the Arroyo government on February 24, 2006 during a protest march commemorating the 20th anniversary of the first people power revolt. For that “act of destabilization,” the bemedalled erstwhile chief of the Army’s 1st Scout Ranger Regiment has since been facing court martial proceedings.

Early this afternoon, Lim issued the same call to “patriotic officers and men of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police” as constitutionally mandated protectors of the people and the State, urging them to take the “fateful step of removing Arroyo from the presidency and undertake the formation of a new government.”

Read Lim’s statement here.

Lim had holed himself up starting around noon at the posh Manila Peninsula hotel in Makati City, together with Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Magdalo soldiers facing coup d’etat charges for the short-lived mutiny at the Oakwood Premier Apartments in 2003. Earlier, Lim, Trillanes and their co-accused soldiers had walked out, along with their guards, of their scheduled hearing at the Makati regional trial court. Braving rains, they later marched on Ayala Avenue, joined by a handful of civilian supporters that included former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr., Bishop Emeritus Julio Labayen of the Prelature of Infanta, and former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo Jr.

But two hours after the lapse of the 3 p.m. deadline issued by the police, the standoff was over as SWAT and Special Action Forces operatives began firing teargas canisters around the hotel to forcefully enforce the arrest warrant against Lim, Trillanes, and the Magdalo soldiers. They were later brought to Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan to face sedition, even possibly, rebellion charges.

Arroyo, charged Lim, had occupied the presidency under a questionable mandate. “She stole the presidency from President Joseph Ejercito Estrada through unconstitutional and deceitful means, and later, manipulated the results of the 2004 elections to perpetuate herself in power.”

It has not helped that efforts to resolve the legitimacy issue through the normal electoral, judicial and congressional processes have been constantly frustrated at every turn by what Lim referred to as Arroyo’s “use of naked power.” He cited the issuance of executive proclamations as EO 464, and the “sheer weight of numbers to paralyze the impeachment process — procured at the people’s great expense.”

Since 2005, impeachment complaints have been filed against Arroyo for the numerous allegations of government corruption, electoral fraud as evidenced in the “Hello, Garci” wiretapping scandal, and the killings of activists and journalists. The impeachment complaints though — including one recently filed charging Arroyo of complicity in the bribery-tainted national broadband network (NBN) deal and the distribution of “cash gifts” to congressmen and provincial governors in Malacañang — have all been summarily trashed on the strength of an overwhelming number of pro-administration legislators in the House of Representatives.

All those implicated in the Garci recordings — from military generals to Commission on Elections officials — have been absolved by non-transparent investigations whose findings were never made public, like the Mayuga report. On the contrary, the Garci tapes’ cast of characters even got rewarded with juicy promotions (read here, here, here and here).

As Lim also mentioned, the Arroyo administration has either blocked or sat on investigations of alleged cases of corruption and wrongdoing in government, among them the following:

• the P728-million fertilizer funds scam involving former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn ‘Jocjoc’ Bolante;
• bribery in the IMPSA contract involving former justice secretary Hernando ‘Nani’ Perez;
• “Jose Pidal” and the jueteng scandals;
• overpriced North Rail project;
• Venable and other multi-million lobby contracts;
• unresolved extrajudicial killings of activists, journalists and members of the judiciary.

The Senate blue ribbon committee’s investigation into allegations of bribery and overprice in the cancelled NBN project has also had to contend with the Arroyo government’s invocation of executive privilege. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita even issued a gag order to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) not to release to the Senate committee NBN documents as the minutes of meetings held by the Special Joint Investment Coordinating Committee (ICC) and the joint NEDA Board and ICC, and the project’s evaluation report.

To this day, no case has been filed against Bolante (who remains in detention in the U.S. for an immigration case) despite a Senate investigation last year that recommended that he be tried for plunder. Though the Ombudsman finally recommended the filing of graft charges against Perez early this year, nothing has been heard of the case since then.

Though Lim, Trillanes and the Magdalo soldiers are to be faulted for another exercise in “adventurism,” one which however was not like the aborted military “withdrawal of support” in 2006 and the Oakwood mutiny in 2003, the roots of military restiveness — corrupt and unaccountable governance — have not been addressed with the quick resolution of the Manila Peninsula crisis.

Indeed, as Gen. Lim remarked, though regrettably, there does remain “unfinished business” here.