t-
with an ideology, structure and the use <jf
H:l***$::*;t+ffi
Dess-as-usual that run the dsk of their going
tojail This has to stop permanently.
That, ultimately, is what's at stake both in
20l9 and in2022. What's always made it easier
is what I mentioned early on-the one thing
that will not change in 2019 is who controls
the gouse of Representatives or local govern-
ments from govemors to barangay chairs. In
that sense, regardless of whether there,s a
Senate inclined to play ball or investigate the
cu[ent President, the House and local gov-
ernnents are thoroughly and permanently in
the hands of people just like the president. had an effect despite various,non-opposition
And who can keep firture presidents tied: slates being too in it for themselves to do il
down in having to make deals with them.
h(cept for the same thing that showed the
cufient President his limits, just as it did a
bis predecessors: public opinion. The 20-
point drop from Kian's ki.lling to the opening
0t the campaign required a lot of movement
,
b recover, which tired out ttle president and
' also, along the way, encouraged his allies to
rt more independently than in anypresiden-
cSrtefore. Example? Gloria Macapagal Arroyo '
Fing the first Speaker in our history who be.
came such without the blessing or permission
of the sitting President. And the way the
House treated the President's economicieam.
Killings and inflation were a double wham-
my that took out steam from the administra-
tion when it was geared up to steamroll its way
to a new ConstitutiorL among other things. But
the President and his people reclaimed popu-
hrity and thus clout in time for the midterms,
which meant critics faced a public too fright-
IltE t01t0
MANUEL
lltttt
L. QUEZON III
\-
ened or, worse, that had recovered its formerly
sha-ken blood-lust significantly enough that
the President's blasting the opposition dbectly
Still, as the President becomes a lame duch
the fear factor he relied 9n to keep local ofEcials
in line will start to evaporate. But there is one
semiperrnan€nt legacy the president's indiffer-
ence to most of the usual requirernents of his
job will have. It can be seen in what replaced his
formal ruling party, partido Demokratiko
Pilipino-lakas ng Bayan (pDp-Laban): Hugpong
ng Pagbabago, which is not a party but a coali-
tion of provincial and urban barons united to
achieve what I pointed out earlier, Theyre used
to caFing things up between drern, and not
pufing together something national ln scope.
In fact, there was a down-and-dirty fight
for what sort of political landscape would be
the legacy of this President, and it was fought
betr ieen Bong co, representing the tradition-
al provincial warlord point of view, and Leon-
cio Evasco Jr., who represented an equally
sinister but national one.
Evasco profrosed a national movement,
\ pAqe -Ap-Y
government agencies committed to making
this movement a permanent national force,
with agents in all govemrnent departments.
Go systematically opposed this, representing
the existing local leaders.
Of course, no one paid attention to thjs fight
because, except for occasional public show-
downs like rice, it was fought thro' presiden-
'gh
tial issuancesi the signing and revoking of exec-
utive orders, etc., repr€senling the seesaw of in-
fluence at any given tim€. Evasco losl Totally.
Which means $at Go's victory and gradua-
tion to the Senate is notjust.as the last "patak-
buhin" of the standing President, but also the
candidate ofthe tocal baroDs who want nothing
.and
more nothing less than to be left to their .
own devices, which is the extraction of fees.
The top two vote-getters for the Senate, if
the surveys are to be believed (and why not?)
tells us why the President's indifference, even
hostility, to a national perspective is signifi-
cant in its aftereffects: Grace poe is personal-
a
ity without a party, while the much-despised
Liberal Party or PDP (which remains the ghost-
ly surviwors of when parties were primarily
political vehicles), the communists and all the
other major paities are actually subsidiades of
the large corporations or their owners (Ramon
Ang's. Natienalist People's Coalirin4 Manni .
Villar's Nacionalista Party, Enrique Razon i
National Unity Party, etc.)
Arroyo found the PDP so worthless she pre-
ferrbd to work through and witt! and be part of,
Hugpong which is setting iself up as the fu-
ture: o,ne that puts the loeal ahead of the ria-
don4 viewing the national whole as a pie to
simply subdivide among its ledders. The future!
mlquezon3@gmail.com