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Voters tell Arroyo how it's gonna be: Just fade away

Asia Sentinel - May 14, 2010

Against the predictions of some alarmists, outgoing Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appears to be losing her clout.

Her gamble to take over as speaker of the House of Representatives, thereby preserving her power base as a hedge against prosecution for corruption, appears to be fading on the magnitude of last Monday's landslide election victory by Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, who won about 40 percent of the vote, while his nearest challenger had about 25 percent.

Arroyo is about to be thwarted by traditional Philippine politics, which holds that political parties are meaningless, no alliance ever lasts and elected officials usually follow the winner because that is where the pork barrel is.

Arroyo, who finished her presidency with some of the lowest poll ratings in the country's history, handily won a congressional seat in her hometown, the first step in her widely anticipated plan to seek the speakership. However, it appears that some members of her administration whom she had expected to take into the House as her allies lost their races.

Sixteen members of Arroyo's government were lined up for House seats. It isn't known yet how many have lost, but the results appear to be an indication that voters want to leave behind the corruption and stagnation that dogged the nation during her nine years in office. According to local media reports, Arroyo is thought to have the loyalty of perhaps 80 to 90 House members, not nearly enough to grab the speaker's seat in the 287-member body.

"I don't suppose that realistically the outgoing president will have a strong chance of becoming speaker of the House," Representative Neptali Gonzales, a member of Aquino's Liberal Party, told ABS-CBN Television.

"The lower house tallies are still coming in and Arroyo still has some cards to play," said Pete Troilo, director of Business Intelligence for the Manila-based Pacific Strategies and Assessments. "Arroyo has a lot of money and Filipinos have short memories, so I wouldn't count her out just yet."

The Liberal Party appears likely to push its man, Feliciano Belmonte Jr., a former speaker, to return to the job. Party allegiances in the Philippines traditionally shift with the arrival of a new president. Given Aquino's impressive victory, and the fact that Arroyo will no longer have access to the development funds that she poured out to keep her allies in line, observers feel she will be increasingly isolated.

Aquino's next task is to set about undoing some of the last-minute appointments Arroyo made to the Supreme Court, the armed forces and the ombudsman anti-graft court – all major institutions that largely succumbed to the politics of patronage, sacrificing the country's tenuous hold on a democratic system already made perilous by a history of dictatorship, military coup attempts and feudal structures. Arroyo's latest act was to name Renato Corona, her former chief of staff and spokesman, to be chief justice of the Supreme Court over stringent objections from the public.

Arroyo and Aquino have been political foes for years. The president-elect's late mother, Corazon, sought to push her from power in 2006 in the wake of widespread allegations of vote-buying in the 2004 elections. He also appears to have the support of Jejomar Binay, who staged an unlikely victory over Arroyo's vice presidential running mate, Mar Roxas.

Binay was a human rights lawyer close to the Aquinos and helped lead the movement to oust Arroyo in 2006.

Aquino will have to decide whether to prosecute Arroyo and her husband on a broad series of crimes, election fraud and corruption despite her attempts to insulate herself from prosecution by packing the Supreme Court with her allies. Human rights groups have alleged that as many as 800 leftist sympathizers were murdered during her presidency when she set out to crack down on the New People's Army and other leftist groups. Many reports indicate that she made massive cash donations directly to House members when she was president.

Aquino has about six weeks to form a cabinet and he says he will ask ministers to make sacrifices during his six-year term. He said he plans to reduce cabinet positions and consultants and retain only important national agencies.

He said he has a "surplus of talent" from which to choose a commission to look into the matter of whether Arroyo can be prosecuted. His lawyers will also have to work out legal mechanisms to reverse a recent Supreme Court ruling – which many say passed only because the court was filled with presidential favorites – on "midnight" appointments.

But foremost on his agenda should be the military. Coup rumors are endemic and Aquino will have to take a balanced approach in dealing with the top brass who were put there by Arroyo for their personal loyalty, but who eventually displayed professionalism in the thick of the political fight.

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