Glo & Marcos

There's The Rub : Martial law

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

TODAY is the anniversary of martial law -- a fact that has taken on exceptional importance notwithstanding that it isn't the 25th or 50th but the 33rd. I know that because I've gotten a number of invitations from schools, media groups and NGOs to compare martial law and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's rule. That very formulation suggests people see a basis of comparison between the two. I doubt I was invited to show the contrast between them.

There is much ground for comparison. At the very least, both rules are based on an outright lie. Ferdinand Marcos lied about everything, including the date when he declared martial law. He did not declare martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, he did so on Sept. 23, 1972. Sept. 21 was a Thursday. Marcos declared martial law on midnight the following day, Friday, technically the 23rd, Saturday. The reason for it being to prevent the activists and the opposition from taking to the streets or organizing anything to oppose it. Things grind to a halt in this country on weekends and Christmases.

Marcos subsequently antedated it to 21 because of one very interesting thing. He believed in the magical properties of 7 and its multiples, or at least that it brought him luck. Well, there is no arguing against history: He ruled for 14 years under martial law. Lucky for him, unlucky for the country.

Ms Arroyo's rule is also based on a lie, or a series of lies. The first is that she deserved to replace Joseph Estrada morally, if not legally. Unlike Cory Aquino who strode in the front lines in the fight against Marcos, Ms Arroyo hid under the bed, to use the late Louie Beltran's famous phrase. The second is that she promised not to run, which needs no further comment. And the third is that she won the elections. "Hello, Garci" proves otherwise. That phrase, which encapsulates a whole constellation of meaning, will not go away; it will hang on Ms Arroyo's head throughout her life, or rule. Which is probably one and the same: She can no longer live without power, a thing she shares with Marcos, or even surpasses him in, which bodes apocalypse for this country.

That, quite incidentally, makes her worse than Marcos. Marcos at least got voted into office twice, the first when he beat her father, Diosdado, and the second when he beat Serge Osmeña's father, Sergio Jr. Marcos was still president when he declared martial law, albeit one whose term was ending at the end of the following year and he was constitutionally barred from running again. The wonder of it, as I've said before, is that we've been brought to this living hell today by someone who was never elected president of this country.

Marcos had no right to rule after 1973. Ms Arroyo had no right to rule -- legally as well as morally -- after May last year. Their rule was/is a lie.

For those who keep asking whether Arroyo can, or will, declare martial law, wonder no more. She has declared martial law, if unofficially, if a thinly veiled version of it. The bottom line there is: Martial law was a palace coup. Arroyo's continued existence is a palace coup.

Both rules were/are overwhelmingly unpopular. Their methods of enforcing their palace coups vary in some parts but are the same in others. Marcos used two things to prop up his rule. The first was naked force, in the form of the military. The second was law, or the kind of law based on its letter and not on its spirit. Indeed, the kind of law where the letter kills the spirit. Marcos himself was a lawyer and relied on legalism to give the most illegal, or illegitimate, act a veneer of justifiability. Marcos had the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary in his pocket. Ms Arroyo has the executive, or what remains of her Cabinet, the House of Representatives if not the entire Congress, and the judiciary in her pocket. Marcos was the law unto himself, Ms Arroyo is the law unto herself.

There is a precedent for the House of Representatives killing the impeachment bill, which is the Constitutional Convention approving Marcos' Constitution. Marcos re-convoked the Con-Con immediately after martial law (the pre-martial one had proven intractable) and its delegates promptly yielded to his wishes. The only difference is that Marcos relied more on the stick than on the carrot to make the Con-Con give him what he wanted. Ms Arroyo relied more on the carrot than on the stick to make the House give her what she wanted. She just bought them all to hell. Or most of them, my thanks go to those who stood their ground, amid the swirl of greed around them.

Marcos' illegitimate rule (after martial law) was essentially mob rule hiding under the mask of legality. He and Imelda pretty much did as they pleased, backed up by a cabal of generals, cronies and petty bureaucrats drunk with power, but with the courts to clean up after them. Ms Arroyo's illegitimate rule (after May 2004) is essentially mob rule hiding under the mask of legality. Arroyo and Jose Pidal pretty much do as they please, backed up by a cabal of generals, cronies and chimpanzees in striped suits, also called congressmen, drunk with power, but with the Firm to clean up after them. You now even have Pidal crowing that the way Pacquiao TKOed Velasquez was the way the House TKOed the impeachment bid. Like I said, drunk with power.

But the biggest similarity of all lies in the character of Marcos and Ms Arroyo themselves. I recall something I wrote last year before the elections in reply to a pro-Arroyo voter who complained bitterly about my comparing Ms Arroyo to Marcos. Surely, she said, I knew in my heart that wasn't true. Surely, I replied, I knew in my heart it was so. Today, surely, I know in every part of my anatomy it is absolutely so. We do not end this now, we will not see the end of Ms Arroyo, not even after 2010.

We will also not see the end of decent Filipinos dying from sheer apoplexy.