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Manila, Philippines — Go back to Sunday’s “Talk Of The Town” and read Leloy Claudio’s and Manuel Buencamino / Men Sta. Ana’s excellent replies to the Philippine Jesuit Commission’s proposal on how to deal with today’s political crisis. Both seize on the fatal flaw of the proposal, which is its premise. That premise is that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should stay in power until 2010 because “while [the effort to oust Arroyo] is one of principled moral conviction, it ceases to be a principled political option if GMA [Arroyo] remains resolute that she would not resign voluntarily.” Clearly, Claudio says, as implied by the Jesuits themselves, “GMA is unfit to lead the country and … the country would be a better place without her as president.” If the Jesuits just want to be pragmatic or want to achieve only the achievable, then surely adding the weight of their voice to the chorus of voices demanding that Arroyo go is more pragmatic because it makes that goal more achievable for everyone? And if ousting Arroyo is useless because it is not achievable, why on earth believe that any of their proposals can be useful, given that the prospect of Arroyo agreeing to them is next to impossible? Buencamino and Sta. Ana work along similar lines. In their own words: “The proposal to have an Independent Counsel is a waste of time and a distraction from looking for a real solution toward ridding the country of a morally bankrupt leader who has corrupted every institution from the Executive to the legislature to the Supreme Court—and even the religious sector.” I leave the reader to look more closely at their arguments. My own position is this: The Jesuits’ reasoning is not flawed, it is idiotic. The premise has absolutely no place in reasonable discourse. Since when did we have to have the permission of malefactors to punish them? That is what this is saying. When a criminal refuses to turn himself (or herself) in, best not to insist on catching him (or her)—might as well just do the next best thing, which is catch other people, or plead with the criminal to turn a new leaf and do something good for the community for a change. For ignorant “istambay” [idle people] to say that is mind-boggling; for learned Jesuits to do so is, well, criminal. When someone has done wrong, we punish him with or without his consent. When a ruler has no right to rule, we oust him whether he likes it or not. The arduousness of the task is not a reason to slink away, it is a demand on us to try harder. Certainly, the unwillingness of the criminal to be punished is not an excuse to give up, it is an imperative for us to push on. That brings me to why I speak of “crime” and “criminal” here. Arroyo is not merely “unfit to lead the country,” she has no right to lead the country. Hers is not a case like Joseph Estrada’s, a president who was voted into power but who betrayed the voters who trusted him. She was simply not voted into power. The “Hello, Garci” tape voids whatever claim she has on the presidency. The Jesuits who presume to be educators should know very well that when you catch someone cheating in exams, you do not call his action a “lapse in judgment” and reward him with a degree on the ground that he probably would have passed anyway even without cheating. That is idiotic. Yet that idiocy has stood these past years as standard wisdom: Arroyo talking to an official of the Commission on Elections during the vote count was a lapse in judgment and she probably would have won the elections without it anyway. That is the key to everything. The corruption, the abuse of power, even the killings are derivative. The issue is not unfitness, it is legitimacy. Now how in God’s name (whichever God the Jesuits worship) can you expect any rectification or reform to come from this fundamental error? How can you expect any moral renewal to come from this seminal immorality? How can you expect any goodness and decency to flow from this elemental evil and obscenity? More to the point, how in God’s name can you possibly expect an Independent Counsel to rid this country of corruption and anomaly and ensure clean elections in 2010 when you feel powerless to do anything about the most basic corruption and anomaly of all, which is the theft of the vote in 2004? And simply because Arroyo remains resolute in not having that investigated? That brings me to the biggest idiocy of all, which is that seeking Arroyo’s ouster today is useless because she “remains resolute that she would not resign voluntarily.” If that’s so, what in God’s—or Beelzebub’s—name makes the Jesuits think Arroyo will not be as equally resolute in not leaving voluntarily in 2010? The usual thing is to say, ah but Arroyo has no choice, she has to step down then because that is what the law says and this country will not abide the transgression. But Arroyo had “no choice” either but to bow to the voters’ will in 2004, and she employed the services of Garci (and his boss, the Borjer King) instead to bail her out. Arroyo had no choice either but to bow to the public will after the “Hello, Garci” tape surfaced, and she chose instead to brazen it out, with no small help from Jose de Venecia and Fidel V. Ramos. Now why should someone who has never been stymied by the public will in the past and present be stymied by the public will in the future? Why should someone who has never been bound by the law in the past and present be bound by the law in the future? Indeed, and far more importantly, why should someone who now sees the once proud members of society, including the Jesuits, reduced only to shock and awe by her resolution to get away with murder not be emboldened to get away with murder some more? You want more proof of what Arroyo is doing to this country, look at the Jesuits. She isn’t just corrupting the bishops’ morals, she is addling the religious’ brains. Write Comment
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