E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Unity!
Sunday, 11 07, 2004
Through her flamboyant disregard of the country’s plummeting economy and the widespread corruption in her government, presumptive President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has painted herself into a corner where she now finds herself helplessly watching a succession of national embarrassments unfold before her eyes. Worse, she cannot seem to stem the tide of the ever-growing opposition. To neutralize all these political misfortunes and extricate herself out of the tight situation she is in, her spinmasters have concocted a brilliant idea: Co-opt the opposition, and ask it to work with her in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation.
In another era, this gesture is all right, even downright commendable. But given her propensity for dissimulation and double talk, she should not be so presumptuous as to think that the Opposition will rush to her open arms. To quote my critic Dan Pinto, who lately has turned to gangster slang: “That’s dubiously copacetic.”
That is exactly what she will do. Use them, the same way she used them in the past. Remember the early months of 2003, when she said she would not run again, and that she would concentrate on a government of national unity? Therewith hangs a cautionary lesson that the Opposition should learn: Once burned, twice stung. You fool me once, shame on you; you fool me twice, shame on me.
Mrs. Arroyo is reported to have offered the moon to the opposition, in exchange for a government of national unity. Thank you very much indeed, Madam, but no thanks just the same. Blandishments will not do.
She is out to buy time. Precious time: This is what she needs. To render the opposition ineffectual as instrument for a vigorous democracy by incorporating its members in her graft-ridden and besieged government would be a stroke of political shrewdness: The unification gestures are mere political smoke and mirrors to divert attention from the scandals wracking the nation; they would go a long way in making her survive the next several months - make that weeks, others say - of uncertainty.
So it would do well for the opposition to spurn these overtures for a truce. Already, the overtures are tainted with bad faith. Why else should Mrs. Arroyo’s hacks in tri-media give prominence to an otherwise delicate enterprise yet in the negotiations stage? Why should they make it appear as if it is the opposition salivating for a truce? Why should they pit one Opposition leader against another, preferring to talk to one and not to all of them? Why should they make it appear as if the opposition is demanding too many impossible concessions? Why should they make the opposition appear as the villain in this whole charade at unification?
Those in the opposition have everything to lose by joining a government that may not even last till Christmas. After Christmas, where will you be, if I may ask the Opposition? The government that has turned out to be a factory of condemnable, execrable and heretofore unheard of acts deserves to have itself destroyed rather than be saved to steal again and again.
The Arroyo government is beyond salvation. It is now running on a dizzy auto-pilot mode, where everything spins out of control and there is no button, not even the panic button, to press in order to halt or decelerate its descent into political perdition. It is better then for the opposition to prepare for a new government of its own. It is the alternative. It can wait.
The opposition joining the government will eliminate a reliable cog in good governance: The critic who points out what is wrong in the running of government. An administration unchallenged by the Opposition would leave the nation at the mercy of the predators of the people. A co-opted opposition member in the government would soon find his eyes so jaded, his morals ambivalent, that he will forget his role. That exactly means he is now part of the government, part and parcel of the problem rather than being part of the solution, and he should be blamed as well.
The country needs an opposition that points out what is wrong. Not an opposition that itself takes part in the booty of corruption. We need an opposition that rouses our dormant propensity to dissent and abhor all forms of poor governance.
Eliminate the Opposition, and Arroyo and her minions will go on with their merry brigandage. Tuloy ang ligaya. Kasama ang Oposisyon. But how about the nation?
In early 2003, Mrs. Arroyo sounded out the opposition for a government of national unity. The opposition did not know what hit them then. They did not know that Gloria was out merely to hoodwink them, that she was merely buying time until their guards were down, while she was insidiously preparing the infrastructure for her own term as president. It was a distraction to the opposition. Luckily, the opposition did not bite so hard. It had time to extricate itself.
In these emergent times, a government of national unity is the last thing we need. The Opposition is what this nation needs, to keep things on track, to make the government aware that it can steal only so much; to make the government realize that it should not steal more than what the nation can chew, otherwise we will find the nation in conflagration again.
The opposition leaders should not bite Mrs. Arroyo’s bait - and they should not expend their energy opposing each other either. Their time out of power should be used to strengthen their flanks for the time when they will be in power. In the meantime, there is much to oppose in the government; there is much to denounce; there is much to champion for the country’s poor and dispossessed. Everything is wrong in this government, and there is no better time to be in the opposition than now.
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The country needs an opposition that points out what is wrong. Not an opposition that itself takes part in the booty of corruption. We need an opposition that rouses our dormant propensity to dissent and abhor all forms of poor governance.
Eliminate the Opposition, and Arroyo and her minions will go on with their merry brigandage. Tuloy ang ligaya. Kasama ang Oposisyon. But how about the nation?
In early 2003, Mrs. Arroyo sounded out the opposition for a government of national unity. The opposition did not know what hit them then. They did not know that Gloria was out merely to hoodwink them, that she was merely buying time until their guards were down, while she was insidiously preparing the infrastructure for her own term as president. It was a distraction to the opposition. Luckily, the opposition did not bite so hard. It had time to extricate itself.
In these emergent times, a government of national unity is the last thing we need. The Opposition is what this nation needs, to keep things on track, to make the government aware that it can steal only so much; to make the government realize that it should not steal more than what the nation can chew, otherwise we will find the nation in conflagration again.
The opposition leaders should not bite Mrs. Arroyo’s bait - and they should not expend their energy opposing each other either. Their time out of power should be used to strengthen their flanks for the time when they will be in power. In the meantime, there is much to oppose in the government; there is much to denounce; there is much to champion for the country’s poor and dispossessed. Everything is wrong in this government, and there is no better time to be in the opposition than now.
For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph
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