A depressing holiday season

UNLESS you've been living on another planet, there isn't very much going on in the Philippines right now to make one feel optimistic, let alone happy. Skyrocketing fuel prices, continued political instability, coup rumblings and an economy that is expected to nose-dive shortly after Christmas, make one wonder: Can things get worse?

It all started on Sunday evening when suspicious troop movements were noted on EDSA highway going south. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was away for the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, so it would be the right time to strike for anyone planning a military-backed coup.

Then former defense secretary Fortunato Abat called the press to Club Filipino on Tuesday to declare that he was forming a parallel government. President Arroyo flew back to Manila on Wednesday evening and landed at the Villamor Air Base despite Abat having given instructions to his supporters to not allow her to land. TV footage of her arrival showed a clearly dour president. She was obviously displeased and depressed at what had happened, all the more so that she was forced to defend her performance to foreign journalists at the ASEAN summit when questioned about the moves to topple her from power.

On Thursday morning, Abat was arrested for questioning, a move that was expected. Despite most politicians dismissing his declaration by saying that Abat had gone batty in his old age, the fact remains that there is widespread discontent, both in the military and in Congress, with how President Arroyo has been ruling the country.

Her heavy-handed approach to governance, never wanting to reach accommodation with her critics, has left the President open to criticism and discontent. Her major flaw is that she flip-flops between regret/accommodation and defiance/arrogance. Earlier in the year, she addressed the nation on television and said she was sorry for having called former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano during the 2004 elections. But after that, Garcillano slipped out of the country for five months, obviously with the help of the President and other government officials.

When President Arroyo managed to squash the impeachment case against her in Congress in July, she made noises that she would be willing to form a national unity government by giving a few key posts to opposition politicians. That never happened, either.

Instead, we the public have been subjected to a whiny Garcillano complaining to the press this week that nobody believes what he says anymore after he resurfaced! What a joke and waste of our time.

And now Ninez Cacho-Olivares, the editor in chief of the opposition newspaper The Tribune, claims she received a leaked top-secret Malacañang document that details how President Arroyo will allegedly step down in late December or mid-January in order to allow a three-man civilian junta to take over.

Olivares claims that the Philippine peso is about to nose-dive after Christmas, its current strength only momentary, propped up as it is by a flood of pre-Christmas money remittances from overseas Filipino workers. This, according to the leaked paper, accompanied with further political disturbances, would spark riots that would make Arroyo's continued rule untenable. House Speaker Jose de Venecia, former president Fidel Ramos, and Vice President Noli de Castro are the names mentioned as the troika that would take over.

This secret plan to secure Arroyo and her family's safe departure from power and the country is supposedly being coordinated with US officials in order not to jeopardize US military and economic interests in the Philippines.
While many people would be happy with Arroyo out of the picture, I'm sure they wouldn't like to be ruled by some shadowy junta that would ultimately not be accountable to the electorate.

These are obviously treacherous times for the Philippines, and one just hopes that Uncle Sam does not approve any wacky idea that would see the country ruled by unelected and unaccountable dictators. That would be a disaster the country would take a long time to recover from.

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