The year of frustrated ambitions

Where did it begin? With President Marcos going for broke, realizing his allies failed to deliver a midterm victory? Or with warnings that the audience he cared about most—foreign governments—were frustrated with “business as usual” in the Philippines? Or did it begin, as it usually does in politics, with one group’s hubris, only to discover it now faced its nemesis, such as when the Discayas, bloated with ill-gotten billions, thought cold cash and brazen behavior could knock down Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto? Or was it, as happens all too often, too, a combination of the national and the local: an administration (built on faked nostalgia) colliding with the undebatable proof of the “tayo-tayo contractization” of corruption between legislators and contractors who got so conceited they thought honesty was chicken feed?

Whichever it was, and I happen to think it was, indeed, a confluence of the local and national, those who thought they had everything figured out have been left scrambling to figure out how to get out of the way of the very thing—public disgust and anger—they thought they could control.

In truth, the national is where it all began, in slow motion. It began even before the midterms when the President started complaining, publicly, of the public works-focused greed of his own coalition partners in Congress. People who live and breathe big numbers and have experience in big ticket items—the private sector, civil society—saw it almost immediately and expressed alarm; but there is nothing more boring than the budget, and so, while the problems were reported, they failed to achieve critical mass in terms of public opinion; their importance would arise much later when time and opportunity came to put two and two together.

Whether encouraged by social media and other messaging methods of its enemies (or not), it’s worth noting that what emerged, early on, as a whispered verdict on what set the Marcos restoration apart from what came before was an escalation of corruption. Again, what would matter more was how the whispers would provide a kind of retroactive validation for exposés.

The President might have been shocked, shocked that wheeling and dealing was going on, but it was also clear that he’d gambled on it being a price worth paying to achieve every administration’s dream, a slam dunk in the midterms. Except that no one got a slam dunk: as it turned out the high-stakes gambling of the administration (letting legislators literally go-for-broke with public works, surrendering former President Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court, parting political ways with his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, and attempting her impeachment) gave momentum to the Vice President’s claim to lead the opposition, except her poor handling of the campaign meant she ran such a weak senatorial slate the administration eked out a draw, which prevented its total defeat and thus, denied the Veep what she needed, a clear-cut victory.

But it left the President damaged goods, and his subsequent gamble—to get ahead of his coalition’s chickens coming home to roost by threatening to jail a big number of them, might have bought him some time. Up to now, even as his numbers have sunk, a remarkably large percentage is still undecided, meaning he can’t be counted out and can still turn the tide.

But this holiday season already saw what is keeping people undecided—will he deliver on his threats to clean house or is it all just for show?—which still hasn’t come to pass. The public doesn’t just want arrests: it wants plenty of them. And they remain few and far between. Each time the administration or the Ombudsman mentions people due to be arrested, and the arrests don’t materialize, the gamble of the President is slipping closer and closer to being a bust.

For its part, the public has already specified the perimeter of allowable political action: nothing in the streets; no regime change before 2028 is in the cards. Many have remarked how no uniting, no outstanding leader has emerged to unite the country. But in its wisdom, the people have spoken: however long it takes, it will have to be without shortcuts, within the rules, which means prosecution of corruption is by the Ombudsman, and the mandate to the government is granted only by national elections.

Can the radical and moderate Left, neither of which can find a way to reconnect even with their core constituencies, see that their biggest successes have been in the courts and not the streets?

And will Congress—both the House and Senate—realize that relief relies on two big risks: passage of an antidynasty law, however diluted, and the calling of a constitutional convention to ensure the 2028 elections will be the first for a new, Sixth Republic?

Because the biggest portion of the electorate now is the none-of-the-above, the independents, the undecided. They are defining the plurality of our disillusioned republic. It is big enough to deprive any of the existing affiliations of continued power, but also, more than enough to grant it to the one able to satisfy the deep yet unfocused desire for something different from everything that has come before.

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