The current political crisis will stretch out for months, it seems. Something has to give. La Presidenta Gloria is bull-headed just as the oppositionists are determined to unseat her.
In question is the legitimacy of Gloria’s tenure as president. Did she really cheat? Did she use the Comelec thru Garcillano in manipulating the figures to give her a million-vote advantage over her closest rival Fernando Poe, Jr?
The Garci tapes have given fodder to her political enemies in their relentless campaign to dislodge her. Now, the situation has become more muddled and extremely volatile. Many issues have played out to exacerbate it. The nation’s political stability is much compromised, to say the least.
The possibility of civil war in fact is in the horizon. The two contending camps are in a death grip. Will they do anything, yes, anything, to annihilate the other? The rightists, the administation has charged, are striking up a tactical alliance with the leftists and communists to grab power. People power is being manipulated by Civil Society to call for another popular uprising to unseat Gloria.
There is no peaceful solution to the stand-off. Or is there?
The nation is faced with unpalatable choices. If Gloria is unseated, who takes over? Will a military junta give us a better government, more upright and less corrupt? Will a leftist government be less authoritarian and keep intact democratic institutions?
Now many contending forces, each with its own agenda, are making a bid for power grab and the Arroyo government is hard put to fend off these forces. It has come to a point it can hardly concentrate its energies to the primary role of governance.
The boisterous group of Erap, himself an unwilling recipient of People Power Wrath being so patently corrupt himself, is jockeying for a leverage, vainly hoping it can still re-install Erap to the presidency.
The military rightists, having tasted power during the draconian Marcosian days, have also a moist eye for Malacanang. They are using the gun to acquire political power. Many AFP retirees and officers, like Abat, think they are God’s gifts to the Filipino people.
The Leftists are presently exploiting the disarray and hope to grab the Malacanang seat by devious means. Knowing they still have not attained the so-called critical stalemate, inch by inch they are crawling and infesting the democratic institutions which give them succor.
Perhaps, this was the most egregious blunder EDSA I produced. Giving them “democratic space” by allowing them to get into Congress thru the party list system, they are now using that power to ensure the growth of their movement, which has an armed component, while they have full liberty to use the CDF funds to advance communist agenda.
The danger lies in the likelihood that these groups meld together to unseat Gloria. The power grab will not end with unseating Gloria. All these forces, being of different suasions and political objectives, will decimate each other to gain the upper hand.
This is the horrifying scenario that we pray will not unfold right in our troubled nation. Already burdened by so much deprivations and suffering, and so many in dire poverty, our people will be the biggest losers in such an explosion.
