by Conrado de Quiros (PDI, June 8, 2009)

You still think we’ll have presidential elections next year? Consider these.

First, the stick. Arroyo cannot afford to be out of power because:

One, the consequences of being out of power are fatal. Not even Marcos was universally reviled. Since October 2004, Arroyo’s approval ratings have been uniformly negative, the only president before and after Marcos to have achieved that dubious feat. The fallout from falling out of power is unthinkable—for her.

The least of what can happen to her legally is being haled to the local courts for corruption. If Erap (former president Joseph Estrada’s moniker) could be jailed for corruption, she can be jailed for corruption. Erap cannot be forgiving in that respect. The most that can happen to her legally is being haled to the international courts for crimes against humanity. If Marcos could be found guilty of the torture and “salvaging” of political prisoners, she can be found guilty of the killings of political activists. Philip Alston has already indicted her for it. The same reasoning that convicted Marcos—it was state policy—can convict her of it.

That is not to speak of the non-legal repercussions of her being out of power.

Two, she cannot trust a successor to look after her interests. The world is no longer hospitable to loot. It’s not just that it has produced stricter laws—even the Swiss banks are no longer safe haven—it’s that it has fallen into harder times. The world is in recession, and despite the predictions of some analysts the light will soon be glimpsed at the end of the tunnel, no one is in a rush to believe it. Least of all people who know what bull looks like, being used to dishing it out, if not indeed being full of it.

Arroyo’s interests are here, in blue-chip companies being gobbled up—talk of Pacman—by allies. Trusting a successor to protect those interests is out of the question. At the very least, as shown by predecessors, foremost herself, when someone becomes president, all his or her promises go out the window faster than you can say, “I will not run.” Everyone who gains power internalizes that power. A potential successor will guarantee Arroyo the moon, but all he’ll give afterward is the Sun—cellular.

More importantly, if you’re the kind who says one thing and does another, would you trust anyone, man or woman, child or beast, to do otherwise?

Three, Arroyo cannot afford to be out of power, and being out of Malacañang is being out of power. The notion that Arroyo can run for a local position, such as congresswoman of Pampanga, and still wield the same kind of power she does now, flies in the face of Philippine politics as we know it. Which shows that when a new president comes to power, everyone abandons party, alliances and loyalties to join the new top dog. The only other thing Arroyo can be after being president is being prime minister.

Next, the carrot. Arroyo can afford to cling to power because:

One, she has the same scale of ambition and the same scale of audacity as Marcos. No Filipino leader after Marcos has shown the same single-mindedness and ruthlessness in wanting to keep power. Not Cory, not Ramos, not Erap. And she has gotten away with it.

No small thanks to people like the Jesuits who refused to join the clamor for Arroyo to step down or be ousted at the height of the NBN scandal presumably because that was futile, she was resolved to stay anyway, might as well wait for 2010. Well, if she can be resolved to stay until 2010 without legitimacy or merit, why in hell can’t she be resolved to stay after 2010 without legitimacy or merit? She only needs to manufacture the first and assert the second.

Two, neither law nor troth has deterred her or bound her. She is the longest-serving, or longest-assuming, president of this country without having once been elected president. The first time legally, if not morally; the second time criminally, if not rottenly. Like Marcos, she just manufactures illegal laws where they are convenient. How else call a law that forbids any public official from testifying against her without her permission but an illegal law? How else call “executive privilege,” which is just a variation of it, but an illegal law?

Unlike Marcos, she just ignores laws where they are inconvenient. What can be a more binding law than your own word? She broke her word not to run, and she broke everything else afterward. Someone who is not deterred from ruling illegally today will not be deterred from ruling illegally tomorrow.

Three, she owns Congress and the courts. You leave the shift to a parliamentary system to Congress and the Supreme Court and a parliamentary system is a done deal. It has been a charade playing before our eyes, the Charter change (Cha-cha) “debate” in Congress, and it will be a parade playing before our eyes, the Cha-cha “debate” in the Supreme Court. The only thing that will stop permanent one-woman rule is the Congress of the Streets; the only thing that will stop it is the Supreme Court of Public Opinion. Or Public Will.

Four, the public has been apathetic. I myself am convinced that that apathy owes in great part to the public’s willingness to tolerate Arroyo out of the belief she will be gone by next year anyway. For which reason that apathy will shatter once it becomes patent she means to stay. I have little doubt we’ll have protests against Cha-cha over the next few weeks, or months, the likes of which have not been seen in the past—other than in the two EDSA people power uprisings. But the seeming apathy of the public over the last few years will be an added incentive for Arroyo to dare the unthinkable, to bare the obscene.

More than all this, there are her continuing assurances there will be elections next year.

So, you still think we’ll have presidential elections next year?