The
pathetic standoff at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport involving
former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Philippine immigration officials
Tuesday evening, only highlights how far contradiction among the country’s
privileged elite can go – a bitter clash that could plunge the country into a
constitutional crisis.
Both camps – the Arroyos and President Benigno
S. Aquino III – have only themselves to blame.
Arroyo, bearing a Supreme Court order to allow
her to leave to seek medical treatment for a reputed rare bone disease, arrived
with her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo to board a flight to Singapore. However,
immigration authorities stopped them on orders from Aquino and the Justice
Department.
That sets up a confrontation with the Supreme
Court, the majority of which she had appointed, issued the order allowing her
to seek treatment in any of five countries that do not have extradition
treaties with Manila.
Legally, there is nothing that would and
should bar the besieged former president from leaving the country in the
absence of a proper court order. In fact, Aquino’s Justice Secretary, Leila de
Lima said that authorities can’t arrest the Arroyos because no charges have
been filed against them. There is an executive order, ironically issued by the
former president herself, however, that places a person under a watch list and
whose flight outside the country may be stopped by immigration officials. It is
an executive edict that is now being questioned before the highest court of the
land by the Arroyos.
The Aquino government believes it has a case
against the former president and is morally obliged to perform its duty of
preventing a potential fugitive from justice from leaving the country. As it
now appears, the Aquino government is taking the risk of being cited in direct
contempt by the Supreme Court for what the current president believes is his
moral obligation.
Longtime
personal feud
The NAIA standoff however is not just mere
legal and political issues between two of the country’s powerful political
clans, it also has personal undertones to it.
During several attempts to impeach President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she was still the president, the Aquinos – at
least the Cojuangco side of the president’s family – were among the leaders of
the movement that sought her resignation. President Noynoy Aquino’s late mother
Corazon, also a former president, went to great lengths to apologize to former
President Joseph Estrada for joining the protest movement that led to his
ouster. Corazon Aquino played a major role in the installation of Arroyo as
president of the republic in the aftermath of Estrada’s impeachment.
Ironically, it is Corazon Aquino, and to some
extent her son, who also were among the first to drop Arroyo as an ally and
call for her resignation due to corruption and widespread electoral fraud in
2004. It is a falling out that left Arroyo enraged. Under her watch, the vast
Hacienda Luisita property of the Cojuangcos was declared subject to the
coverage of the land reform program.
Aquino in turn has not got over the fact that
the Arroyos pulled all the plugs during the 2010 presidential elections in
which the current president won convincingly on an anti-corruption platform.
Both the former and current presidents share
the same place in the history of Philippine politics. They are the only
presidents whose parents also served as presidents of this oldest republic in
Southeast Asia. They practically share the same origin, having roots in central
Luzon. Their parents were stalwarts of the Liberal Party, one of the oldest
political parties of the country. They are also among the old rich families in
the Philippines.
The Arroyo camp, however, displayed more
arrogance and defiance by boldly challenging the Aquino government to implement
its order preventing the former president from leaving the country. The Arroyos
still think they should be accorded the privilege and perks they used to
excessively wield and enjoy while at the helm of Malacañang.
Prosecution
or Persecution?
Beyond that however, the Arroyos are now
trying to portray themselves as being persecuted after the former president was
denied her basic right to travel, including her right to proper medical care.
But there are reasons to be suspicious of
politicians seeking medical care abroad. A long line of figures including
Gloria’s own husband, Mike, have opted for medical care when corruption charges
have arisen. Hiding under the cloak of “human rights,” they have sought shelter
in hospitals or cited medical excuses to delay investigations or prolong court
hearings.
Perhaps the most successful, or at least the
most controversial, was former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, ousted and then
put under house arrest on plunder charges. He was said to be suffering from
osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that was said to have damaged both
of his knees. A series of other illnesses rendered him ill for the entire
period of house arrest, although he staged a miraculous recovery when Arroyo
pardoned him in 2007, appearing relatively hale and hearty when he ran in 2010
national elections, finishing second to Aquino.
After the NAIA fiasco, in which Arroyo and her
husband were stopped from leaving the country, it will make their alleged
agenda of seeking political asylum elsewhere now even more plausible for a host
third country.
If the Arroyos succeed in their agenda, Aquino
will only have himself to blame. He failed to capitalize on the year-plus he
has already had to build a case against the former president. He seems more bent
on keeping Arroyo a convenient scapegoat for his own growing failure. For
Aquino, it appears that Arroyo’s conviction as an incorrigible grafter is the
bar to which his government will be measured. He is taking a big political risk
to display his obvious contempt for and dislike of the Arroyos.
For all these, we only have the Arroyos and
Aquino to blame.
Edwin Espejo
Asia Sentinel
(Edwin Espejo blogs for Asian Correspondent at
Chronicles from Mindanao.)
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