Plots, Plausibility and the Politics of People Power

Once again, the swords are drawn and the gathering armies of both the administration and the opposition are plotting in the shadows their next moves. So far, the center seems to hold although it has been fatally exposed as having a soft underbelly; murky revelations from the slimy underworld of illegal gambling and hints of reptilian tricks from an even slimier bureaucracy greased by vote-buying money do not seem to have had the destabilizing effect intended as this government has wildly feared.

The events of the past week or so have quite nakedly bared two tendencies of our political elite that now and again surface in times of intense contestation: the opposition’s brazenly cynical mimicry of the emotional power of the two EDSA uprisings, and the administration’s equally underhanded instinct to protect and preserve itself at all cost, as in the readiness to whip up an obviously tall tale about two tapes, a preemptive measure ostensibly in defense of the security of the state.

The marks of a contrived populism are evident in the re-staging of events ala EDSA: shady characters appearing on the scene with their sordid tales, the appeal to the people to rise and mass together for another ‘people power’, the surfacing of a key witness clutching for display the ‘mother of all tapes,’ inciting an aggrieved widow to foment unrest while at the same time entreating the Church for protection.

Contrary to the expectations of those behind this crude imitation of history, the net effect so far has been a bad case of déjà vu: one feels subjected to witnessing a forced performance of bad actors mouthing lines one has heard before, only this time the lines have a hollow and deceptive ring to them and the major players are all soiled characters about as capable of inspiring sympathy as the tacky sleaze of a grade B movie.

It is no wonder that our people are not rushing to the barricades as imagined by those who wish to stage another mutiny. Instead of stirrings of moral outrage, one feels a certain fatigue tinged with rage at being so blatantly manipulated. The media may huff and puff and expend a lot of hot air blowing out of proportion putative signs of instabilities, but the rest of us are unmoved, a feeling shared widely among grassroots communities. A recent pulsing done in the urban poor community of Payatas shows that the people do not want any more ‘people power’; they are sick of being out in the streets for nothing.

This is not to be taken as a repudiation of people power per se.

The fact that EDSA II had uncanny resemblances with the original EDSA experience shows that there are constant cultural forces behind these uprisings. This time, what seems to be behind the reluctance to once again take to the streets is the perception that events are being stagemanaged, besides the disillusionment of seeing the promises of EDSA thwarted and whittled down to zero significance, hijacked by the political elite of this country. What had sprung as a genuinely popular impulse for direct democracy had been appropriated by the elite as a tool for demagoguery, a way to return to power and corner the spoils of the system.

Conscious of this travesty, our people are wisely remaining on the sidelines, impervious to trumped up agitations.

Social theory tells us that ideas and movements do not succeed in history simply because they are true or represent valid causes. You need ‘plausibility structures’, the right mix of social forces and processes to gather momentum for a wind change.

While the seat of power has been dealt severe damage, the elements that would make a change of government likely at this time have yet to come together.

For one thing, the people have to be convinced that this drama has at its root a moral justification. Part of our indigenous political culture is the bias for a highly emotional response to issues at the fairly primal level of what is sensed to be right and wrong. People do not get roused by abstract ideological reasons, but by moral outrage triggered by a sense of identification, either with a fallen underdog like Benigno Aquino ( ‘hindi ka nag-iisa’ ) or with a hapless victim like Flor Contemplacion, an iconic symbol of our misfortunes. The force of this is seen in the two EDSA rebellions, which are but the tip of a submerged culture of protest and solidarity that now and again rises to the surface. Historians tell us that through the long years of colonization under Spain, the Filipino people were not at all quiescent but mounted intermittent rebellions every 25 years or so. The reasons had little to do with power politics but with grievances arising from a sense of wrong and victimization.

This force, which arises from moral conviction, is missing as a push factor in the ill-disguised plottings of the opposition. For all its savvy in orchestrating pressures on the present leadership, it lacks the moral credibility necessary to galvanize the seething sentiments of discontent swirling round the presidency.

Similarly, perhaps the greatest disservice of the Arroyo administration to the nation and even to itself is the sore lack of a moral center. Communication studies show that leadership, to be effective, needs to demonstrate at least three things: competence, character and charisma. All three have to be together, and the most critical, to my judgment, is character. Charisma without character is disaster, as we have seen in the previous mafioso-like regime of Joseph Estrada. Competence without character impairs authority, and inspires neither the loyalty that makes for constancy and stability nor the credibility necessary to rally a people in times of extreme duress.

Without a moral compass, a deep enough principle behind its leadership, a ship of state goes adrift, rudderless and subject to being tossed and fro by the winds that blow from all corners of the social weather.

The instincts of our people are right. They are not going to lift a finger to rescue a beleaguered regime caught in the darksome toils of its own spinning, and neither do they wish to have anything to do with the ingenious plottings of failed adventurers and a politics reduced to a mere contest for power between one set of crooks and another set of crooks.

---- Melba Padilla Maggay, Ph.D.
Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture