Regaining strength
From all the noise coming out of Malacañang, the bishops and police, deposed President Joseph Estrada will soon be convicted of plunder, ending a six-year wait.And from all indications, he will be pardoned by President Arroyo. If the pardon is absolute, Erap can’t reject it.
Conviction will require his transfer from the comfort of his rest house in Tanay, Rizal to one of the national prison facilities, most likely the one in Muntinlupa. Serving time in a real prison, even if he gets VIP treatment, could soften Erap’s avowed opposition to any pardon from the woman who is still referred to as a “usurper” by his followers.
There could be some haggling over the inclusion of a specific clause in an absolute pardon that will allow Erap to hold public office again.
For a man who has managed to retain his mass following during his six years in detention, it will be a breeze to return to the Senate.
And the presidency? Erap has made no secret of his wish to return to Malacañang, if fate allowed it. Will the current administration give him the chance to return to power — and possibly get back at those responsible for his humiliation? There is an apocryphal story about Erap urinating on a San Juan cop who had incurred his displeasure when he was the town mayor. You wouldn’t want this kind of guy to hold a long-simmering grudge against you.
Yesterday Senate President Manuel Villar said he favored the acquittal of Estrada. Villar is widely believed to be positioning himself for the presidential race in 2010, and he is said to have persuaded Erap’s son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, to be his running mate.
Offhand getting Jinggoy looks like a political coup for Villar, who is guaranteed the support of that 30 percent of the population that has remained solidly behind Erap.
The move becomes disconcerting only when you remember that it was Villar, as speaker of the House, who fast-tracked Erap’s impeachment through the chamber in 2000, paving the way for the Senate trial.
Then again, Villar’s reported alliance with the Estradas is no longer surprising. Teofisto Guingona Jr., whom President Arroyo picked as her first vice president over microphone holder Aquilino Pimentel Jr., and who first formally hurled the accusations that led to Erap’s impeachment, went over to Erap’s side first.
Erap was impeached on allegations of large-scale corruption. People were so certain of his guilt that when his Senate allies tried to block the opening of an envelope believed to contain damning evidence against him, EDSA II was born and Erap found himself out of a job. Three months later, he was held without bail for plunder.
If the death penalty had not been abolished, plunder would have been a capital offense. This was supposed to be an open-and-shut case, and Erap’s ouster was supposed to herald a new dawn in governance.
Instead the case dragged on for six years, at the end of which Erap now finds his mass support still intact and his family firmly entrenched in both local and national politics. His support is courted by both pro-administration and opposition politicians. A recent survey said his trust rating in Metro Manila has soared. And the government is already dangling forgiveness even before his guilt is announced by the anti-graft court.
This phenomenon can be attributed not so much to anything new that Erap has done in the past six years, but to the unfulfilled promises of EDSA II and the failures of the administration.
* * *
Erap’s acquittal would have triggered a crisis of legitimacy for the administration. Was his ouster through people power unwarranted? With his conviction, the legitimacy question can be put to rest.
If he is pardoned, we must ask whether justice was rendered. The administration can point to Erap’s six years under rest house arrest as time served and explain that this is sufficient punishment for someone who, after all, won the presidency by the largest margin ever in the nation’s history of free elections. Even South Korea’s two former presidents were incarcerated for only half that time before being pardoned, and they were convicted of more serious offenses.
Another question in case of conviction is whether lessons have been learned. Will Filipinos henceforth bear in mind that corruption does not pay?
Judging from recent scandals, this has not happened.
Corruption scandals hounded this administration almost from Day One, starting with the $2 million that the President’s first justice secretary, Hernando Perez, is accused of receiving in exchange for a legal opinion that favored Argentine firm IMPSA. The case remains unresolved.
Today the nation prepares for the verdict on Erap in the midst of another corruption scandal. The amounts mentioned in connection with the ZTE deal are even larger than the kickbacks Erap allegedly received. The latest story yesterday was that officials of the National Economic and Development Authority were offered P200 million to endorse the broadband contract. Whether out of fear of prosecution, stupidity or genuine honesty, the NEDA officials reportedly declined.
The administration cannot even stage a show of determination to stamp out smuggling in Subic without the whole thing being dismissed as a cheap publicity stunt.
Aside from critics noting that the smuggled luxury vehicles destroyed were mostly old, “white papers” are now circulating, accusing Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority board director Jose Calimlim, said to be a presidential relative, of coddling smugglers at the freeport. Elsewhere in the country, administration allies are also being linked to smuggling and illegal gambling.
Such scandals have bolstered Erap’s political stock even without his lifting a finger. And he is bound to become stronger in the next three years.
