Beyond personal culpability
Let’s not be deceived by the formality of the legal processes and the surface meanings of the trial of Joseph Estrada and the handing down of the verdict by the Sandiganbayan tomorrow.Gloria Arroyo and what she represents, not Estrada, are on the dock here. Whichever way the Sandiganbayan decides, the jury will continue to be out on the question of the guilt or innocence of Estrada.
But the "guilt" of Arroyo, beginning with her usurpation of the presidency and her continuing debasement of constitutional processes to secure her continued stay in power, is as good as proven.
More important than the personal culpability of Erap and Gloria, however, are the social dynamics that that have been temporarily frozen, as it were, during these last six years. We are talking about the continuing struggle between the masses and the elites that are personified by Erap and Gloria in the Filipino’s march toward a just and equitable society.
It may seem anachronistic in this, the first decade of the 21st century, to view social dynamics through the lenses of the masses’ struggle for a place in modern society and the elites’ determination to keep their dominant and privilege position. But that’s precisely the self-understanding of the two protagonists in the drama.
Erap offered himself as the hope of the masses and won the 1998 election with an overwhelming mandate. Erap has been in detention for six years, but the perception that he is the champion of the poor and the powerless remains undimmed. Gloria has been representing herself as the embodiment of the ethos of the modernizing elite. But her mis-governance and corruption makes even the Makati Business Club cringe in embarrassment.
Gloria has given the modernizing elite a bad name. From a historical point of view, this is probably the biggest crime she has committed against Filipino nation. Counting from 2001 to 2010, she would have wasted almost a decade of opportunity in moving the economy strongly forward and in empowering the poor, two processes that are mutually reinforcing.
These unresolved social contradictions will continue to define our future in the near-term.
If Erap is found innocent, the bottled up pressure could tear the social consensus which has been frayed by a government lacking in legitimacy. Hopefully, elections of 2010 could come soon enough to enable the people to air their accumulated frustration and anger.
If Erap is found guilty, we see a massive outpouring of outrage. This could probably be contained through heavy-handed deployment of the state’s repressive apparatuses. Again, hopefully until the 2010 elections.
Three years of uncertainty. Three years of instability either way. And probably beyond as our scenarios are based on the assumption, which we are forced to make because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate, that the 2010 elections would lead to a return of social consensus.
