Reality check

Veteran journo Glenda Gloria said it best: “The Philippines faces its biggest corruption scandal in history—throwing the economy into a fit, scaring away investors, angering citizens across classes and ages, and unmasking a la-la-land presidency.”

There is an ongoing competition for public opinion. Whose opinions are up for grabs, in our fiercely partisan environment? Most of us, it turns out. The most recent November survey results of WR Numero show that if asked whether pro-admin, pro-opposition, or independent, 17 percent are for the administration (-8 since August), 8 percent for the opposition (-2 in the same period), 41 percent say they’re independent (+5 since August), and 35 percent identify as not sure (+6 in the same period). But if asked instead whom they support, self-identification became: 34 percent pro-Duterte (+5 since August; 69 percent in Mindanao, 35 percent Visayas, 20 percent Metro Manila and Balance Luzon), 15 percent pro-Marcos (-4 in the same period), 12 percent pro-opposition (defined as Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, Sen. Bam Aquino, -4 since August), and 39 percent are for none of the above (+2 in the same period).

I’d insisted, especially after the midterms, that it was a mistake to consider President Marcos a lame duck. After dipping during the midterm campaign, the President was perceived to have lost the midterms, but actually rebounded from 29 percent in April to 35 percent in August. After essentially giving the House a blank check before the midterms, it didn’t deliver and worse, saddled him with the mother of all budgetary scandals; but by sheer inertia (having more veteran, proven vote-getters on his slate than the Dutertes who couldn’t mount a full, much less winning, slate) he ended up with more senators than the Dutertes and, retaining all the powers of an incumbent, still dictated the national agenda.

He boldly seized the stage during his State of the Nation Address by placing flood control corruption front and center, and maintained momentum by identifying and then prosecuting the leading suspects. According to WR Numero, his gamble is failing, competing with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the most unpopular under the 5th Republic; his media offensive—talking directly to the public, online, among other things—has flopped, significant proof being that only 18.7 percent of Filipinos know of, or have gotten news of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, a hefty 44.5 have heard only “a little” about it, while over a third of Filipinos haven’t even heard of the ICI (and only 11 percent trust the Ombudsman to conduct investigations). At first blush, command responsibility is the President’s: he comes first at 31 percent, tied with national officials, his subordinates; the Discayas are third at 28 percent, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez at 23 percent, and former Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co at 21 percent. Shockingly, Sen. Francis Escudero, for one, is practically absolved: 3 percent (connect this, if you will, with his recent combativeness in press statements; he is down but not out). But if you dig deeper, it’s Mindanao (where 48 percent deem him most responsible) that has its thumb on the scale: in Metro Manila, the President comes in fourth at 24 percent, in the rest of Luzon, third at 26 percent; and in the Visayas, second at 28 percent.

The President may be dictating the pace of reportage, but for a public for whom the media is increasingly becoming background noise, his old-school strategies haven’t delivered—not least because no major arrests have been made. It’s remarkable that only now is the Ombudsman demonstrating the potential of what the institution could always have been: a kind of juggernaut for accountability, crushing officials in its path, but we’re approaching mid-month and not a single one of the promised detentions has taken place.

Still, the President can’t be considered a lame duck because he wields the police power. Early on, that wily old political operator Ronnie Puno tried to define the acceptable extent of human sacrifices to be made: Escudero and Co (Nov. 30, if anyone forgets, was the first anniversary of Escudero being caught on security cameras giving up a holiday to secretly meet with Co in the premises of the House), but not the former Speaker or former Sen. Grace Poe. But the entire political class feels the heat, and so the House has had to propose the previously unthinkable—an antidynasty law, a constitutional convention—but stubbornly gave short shrift to what resigned ICI commissioner Rogelio “Babes” Singson pleaded for–a law creating an investigative commission with a shield (immunity from suit) and teeth (prosecutorial powers) to run after flood control scammers. This suggests where pressure needs to be consistently applied for the first two, and intensified if there is to be any hope of the third.

Yesterday’s announcement that, in the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council, the President endorsed the antidynasty bill, the independent people’s commission bill, the party-list reform bill, and the Citizens’ Access Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability bill, is a doubling down that also pins down any legislator tempted to think the surveys reveal the President as a lame duck.

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Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3