Defending our institutions

A FRIEND told me she had a conversation with a Malaysian recently, and her Malaysian friend teased her: "Why don't you just scrap elections altogether since they don't seem to work for you anyway?" My friend laughed at the joke, but was quite bothered by it. It did seem, she told me, that we were becoming something of a joke for our leaders having short shelf lives.

This reminded me again of a story an American friend, a journalist, told me some years back. This really happened, she assured me. On a trip to the hinterlands of Cambodia, she asked an old woman what she thought of a coming election. The old woman answered: "What can I say? We're having another one again. That means the last one didn't work."

I personally am not bothered by comments about this country making a joke out of its institutions. Or about us having developed a bloodlust we mount king-hunts, or queen-hunts, at every turn. At the very least, who the hell cares what others think of us? At the end of the day we, and not they, will have to live with the consequences of our actions, or the lack of them. Indeed, who the hell cares about the opinion of people who would do well to discover People Power themselves and oust leaders who rule with an iron fist and stay for as long as they want? And send opponents to jail on trumped-up charges, as Mahathir did to Anwar Ibrahim.

But it's more than that. What's weird about the perception, local or foreign, about this country making a travesty of its elections or its institutions is that the campaign to oust President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is in fact a staunch defense of this country's institutions, chief of them its elections. The campaign to oust Ms Arroyo is not a throwback to the move to oust Joseph Estrada, it is a throwback to the move to oust Marcos. Its only resemblance to the oust-Estrada campaign is that Ms Arroyo is accused as well of plunging the country into a gangster's paradise, one ruled by gambling lords, including her son, Mikey, and by people who like to murder journalists. Lest we forget, this country has become the second most corrupt in Asia and the most dangerous place for journalists in the world. That's worse than Estrada.

But the move to oust Ms Arroyo resembles the move to oust Ferdinand Marcos and not Estrada because of one fundamental thing. It is a move to oust a president who is not the president at all. The only one who can demand with any credibility that this country respect its institutions, chief of them elections, is Estrada -- and he does so to this day. He was at least clearly, decidedly, overwhelmingly elected President of the Philippines. Neither Marcos nor Gloria was, or is. Marcos at least after martial law: He was elected twice before that. After martial law, Marcos ruled by force; before martial law, Ms Arroyo rules by farce. Marcos ruled by decree, Ms Arroyo rules by Garci. Law was the last thing Marcos had on his side, but it was the first thing he kept invoking. So does Gloria. God must truly be merciful to be sparing with his thunderbolts.

To oust Ms Arroyo is to defend this country's democratic institutions, it is to defend the sacredness of its elections. It is to affirm in the most forceful way that no one is above the law, no one may mess around with the elections-much less so in the brazen way Ms Arroyo did with Garci -- and get away with it.

Take a bow, Conrad. Excellent point. Read the whole article.