There is no reason to panic amidst talks of possible military take-over should there be a failure of elections. As deputy presidential spokesperson, Ricardo Saludo, said: the country has never suffered a general failure of elections. However, there is neither a reason to be complacent with just a little over a month before the first-ever nationwide automated national elections.
That a general failure of elections has not happened in the past doesn’t make it remotely impossible to happen in our time. After all, there is always a first time. And after all, Mrs. Arroyo and her minions have, in the past nine years, astonished both critics and allies at how clever she circumvents anything, anyhow, making possible what were thought of as impossible, at least in the legal sense.
The pattern has always been that of testing the limits of the persuasive and coercive power of the presidency, as would any veteran politician, especially one who is so unpopular that he/she would have to do a tip-toe in employing overt and covert measures or risk facing a popular uprising.
And when Arroyo’s spokespersons give their analysis of this and that as with the outcome of the elections, there is always something vile to be expected.
News has it that Arroyo’s favorite loyal generals have all been securely placed in key positions of the AFP, the latest of which is the appointment of Lt. Gen. Delfin Bangit as chief of staff.
Interestingly, all recently appointed top AFP officials as well as the commanding generals of seven of the Army’s 10 divisions, belong to PMA class ’78 where President Arroyo is an ‘adopted’ member.
The Supreme Court has just recently voted legalizing Arroyo’s appointment of the next Chief Justice to replace Puno when he retires on March 17, 2010 despite Constitutional prohibition on election-period appointments. Out of the 15-member SC, only Reynato Puno, the Chief Justice, is not appointed by Arroyo.
Aside from eyeing Pampanga’s second district, the president’s rabid allies, Eduardo Ermita, Raul Gonzales, Agnes Devanadera, Arthur Yap, Hermogenes Esperon and many others, are also vying for Congressional seats, with son Mikey Arroyo and Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes taking the partylist route. Some 38 other Malacañang-aided partylists have also been accredited by COMELEC to supposedly counter and lower the votes for progressive partylists.
There is also a great cause for concern over Comelec’s non-issuance of implementing rules and regulations on election protest with the new ‘automated’ system, imminently to spell widespread confusion and disarray, if not total failure and disorder.
These events could very well be thought of as a coincidence yet there is something about it that reeks of eerie nuances and smells of dirty plot. Judging from where things could be heading, GMA might decide to take a position as hold-over president should Comelec fail to declare a new president; she has the majority of the Congress at her favor, the Supreme Court at her behest, and Bangit to quell any mutiny. That or a new president can take his oath, perhaps Noynoy Aquino or Manny Villar, or perhaps even the admin bet Gibo whose party has reportedly been moving heaven and earth to win the race, and GMA still gets to win a Congressional seat and from there leap to become the Philippines’ first prime minister, or Speaker of the House, at least; Charter Change has never left her mind.
The Palace has promised that GMA will step out of Malacañang not later than noon of June 30, 2010 when her term expires. Even that remains dubious insofar as history is concerned. Who can forget that this was the same president that promised not to run in 2004 but did anyway and even snatched from the late FPJ the title she so desired via ballot switching by loyal troops and her warlord-friend Ampatuan’s command votes?
Who but this same president has publicly admitted in her infamous “I am sorry” video that it was a lapse in judgment to sneak a phone and have a chit-chat with a Comelec commissioner to ensure her of a million lead against her adversary; the same president that issued a gag order on all officials of the Executive, specifically designed to hamper Senate investigations; and the only president as of yet to impose post-Marcos martial law.
There is more than enough reason to suspect something is at work to keep Mrs. Arroyo from the claws of justice, if at all justice has withstood all these sorts of perversion. Whatever that something actually is, it is beyond doubt that it is something sinister as can be expected from the Sinister herself.
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