Date:09/02/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/02/09/stories/2007020903431100.htm

Opinion - News Analysis

A President's bid to win over her people

P.S. Suryanarayana

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's latest moves reveal a desire to appear people-friendly. Her political future will, of course, depend on the follow-up action.

— PHOTO AP

CHANGING STRATEGIES: Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

PHILIPPINES PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has not derived much political capital by presiding over "the orchestra of summits" organised by the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) in the Filipino city of Cebu in mid-January. Ms. Arroyo is, therefore, turning the focus on issues that might capture the people's imagination in a big way. Her sense of urgency has a purpose.

The 21st anniversary of the original "people power revolution" falls on February 25. The celebrations of the 20th anniversary last year were banned. She had imposed a national emergency a day earlier, only to withdraw the unpopular decree a week later. Her political opponents were planning to utilise the 20th anniversary, an evocative day in the national calendar, as a smokescreen for stepping up their campaign for her resignation. And, she announced the emergency citing a coup plot by a band of "military adventurers" from the political Right. The main "plotters," heads of two elite military units, were arrested shortly before the emergency, and she accused the Left of being a co-conspirator in the coup plot. These moves wounded the people's psyche. And, she lifted the emergency soon, claiming the "conspiracy" against her administration had been "thwarted." Visibly, she averted a looming personal crisis.

This year, Ms. Arroyo has sought to take some popular action in the run-up to the 21st anniversary of the "people power revolution." The occasion evokes emotions that go beyond happiness over the exit in 1986 of a dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Having become President in 2001, in the context of the second "people power campaign," Ms. Arroyo still finds herself blamed, in several quarters, for "stealing the presidency" from a duly elected leader, Joseph Estrada, at that time. The lingering questions about her political legitimacy flow from the allegations that she won the 2004 presidential poll by influencing the vote count. Allegations of corruption have also compounded her problems in office and led to some despair in the Philippines and the wider East Asian region.

Nonetheless, as political survival tactics go, Ms. Arroyo has already answered her critics. In July 2005 and almost exactly a year later, she succeeded in ensuring the defeat of impeachment resolutions against her in the country's Congress. Now, regardless of whether the Opposition would still try and initiate impeachment proceedings against her before the end of her presidential term in 2010, Ms. Arroyo has indicated, through her latest moves, that she is aware of the priority of wooing the people.

While the eradication of poverty remains a daunting socio-economic challenge in the overall climate of elite politics, she has chosen a different but resonant issue to try and win the hearts of the people at this stage. On January 30, Ms. Arroyo issued a series of "directives" to address the allegations of rampant extra-judicial killings of political activists on both the Left and the Right of the spectrum.

In a noticeable echo of her moves at the comparable stage last year, Ms. Arroyo's latest "directives" too pertain to the suspected activities of some sections of the armed forces of the Philippines. Last year, she wanted to stop the "coup-plotters" in their tracks, and her pledge this year is to "stop" the reported wave of mysterious killings "once and for all." Filipino military personnel are often blamed for these "unexplained" murders in Ms. Arroyo's U.S.-aided anti-terror and anti-insurgency campaigns. Muslim "insurgents" in the majority-Christian Philippines are said to be the prime targets of these campaigns. But it is widely believed that activists of the political Left unrelated to this "insurgency," as also journalists, were the victims of the alleged excesses by the armed forces.

As for the anti-terror drive, the fear of a possible terrorist attack was one of the reasons behind the initial postponement of the Cebu Asean summits. And, on January 21, almost a week after the summits, Ms. Arroyo announced the killing of Khaddafy Janjalani, said to be the ringleader of the Abu Sayyaf group. Praising the armed forces' "tactical prowess" and thanking the U.S. for its help, she vowed to "mop up the remnants of terror."

Evident in Ms. Arroyo's latest strokes of policy and pledges is the desire to appear people-friendly, while her actions during the corresponding period last year brought her political problems. Her own political future will, of course, depend on the follow-up action that she can now take.

However, as Rodolfo Severino, a distinguished Filipino and former Asean secretary general, points out, the Philippines is still "hampered by a political system of party-less, dysfunctional, democracy" in a presidential set-up.