Eric Gutierrez
March 2001
Introduction
Note that this essay is about ‘EDSA 2’-- which is to be differentiated from the wider, politically sharper ‘People Power 2’. EDSA 2 represents those political forces, personalities as well as ordinary people, who, responding to Cardinal Sin’s caution, remained at EDSA on that fateful night/daybreak of Joseph Estrada’s ouster. ‘People Power 2’, on the other hand, are those who decided to break away from EDSA, proceed to Malacañang, and deliver the verdict to Joseph Estrada. The latter is a far more complex creature, which we won’t deal with in this essay.
The moral right to govern
Joseph Estrada’s ouster is justified almost wholly on the grounds his having lost the ‘moral right to govern’. This idea is a most recent standard used in the evaluation of Philippine politics and politicians. For instance, during the ‘dark years’ of Ferdinand Marcos’s rule, the formal Roman Catholic hierarchy in Manila was nowhere near the forefront of the opposition to the dictator. It may be recalled that they did start to be critical of Marcos at some point, but they never did come out, pronounce and underscore a judgement that Marcos has lost his ‘moral right to govern’. Cardinal Sin’s 1986 plea for people to protect the Enrile-Ramos mutineers in Camp Aguinaldo was preceded not with a declaration of outrage against Marcos’s plunder but with calculated, muted criticisms. On the other hand, activists in the forefront of the anti-Marcos movement then very rarely, if at all, used the term ‘moral’-- Marcos had to be ousted simply because he had no right to rule, period. Today, ‘moral’ is the basis on which right to rule is measured, perhaps because this most recent president who was the object of moral outrage was elected with the biggest majority in Philippine election history.
As shown by this brief comparison of the anti-Marcos and anti-Estrada opposition -- the notion of a ‘moral right to govern’ changes over time. Marcos was many times more morally hideous than Estrada, yet it was a lot more difficult to rally the moral resolve of the church and the middle classes in ousting Marcos. It needed the drama and the shock of a Ninoy Aquino assassination before moral forces rallied in the streets against Marcos. The ‘moral right to govern’, therefore, contrary to what the morally correct will say, is not a universal value that exists irrespective of time or the context it finds itself in. This ‘moral right’ is relative -- that is -- that there is no one single ‘morality’ but rather many versions of what is and what is not moral. On a different occasion at a different time, the moral standards applied on Joseph Estrada would not have been held up. The effective standards of morality are determined by prevailing social conditions, and not by a transcendent value, and hence may change over time depending on who is the object of outrage and who is outraged. A most cynical view is that morality is invoked only when it is convenient to do so.
Nothing underscores this relativism of morality more than the double standards and hypocrisy around Estrada’s ouster. Take Corazon Aquino the pure-hearted, for instance. She was among the first and perhaps most prominent to invoke that Estrada has lost his moral right to govern. This was on the basis of the damning testimony of gambling lord Chavit Singson on Estrada helping himself to the loot of jueteng operations. Yet it is quite clear that her very own brother, whose ‘friendship’ with Chavit stretches longer than Estrada’s, is a much more malignant figure behind jueteng operations. Her brother has been the object of rumours of being a jueteng godfather since 1986. Would Cory Aquino have expressed the same moral outrage if Chavit did on her brother what has been done to Estrada? Wasn’t she aware that jueteng thrived in Central Luzon when she was President (and continues to this day), and that jueteng operations were reported to have been conducted from right inside the family’s Hacienda Luisita? Didn’t she know that jueteng bloomed during the time of Nazareno as Central Luzon Recom commander, the same person her brother successfully lobbied to be the first PNP Director-General? Why pick on Estrada without raising even a whimper on her brother’s dubious reputation?
Any muckraker can show how many honourable gentlemen and ladies of the anti-Erap front actually condone and at most delight in extra-marital affairs, so long as these are kept secret. Or, that many of them, at some point in their political lives, found themselves in ‘kapit-sa-patalim’ situations that inevitably led to deals being struck with gambling lords, with unscrupulous businessmen, with corrupt bureaucrats, or with politicians as ‘plunderous’ as Estrada. And how should the anti-Estrada leftists and rightists -- these little ruthless Machiavellians -- be seen in the contest of the ‘moral right to govern’? Does it now mean to say that drunks, gamblers, womanisers, and petty thieves have no moral right to govern, but those who are ready to be killed and to kill coldheartedly in pursuit of political goals, can, at some point in time, capture and hold on to power and have moral rights in doing so? To be blunt about it, it is sometimes revolting how this overly sanctified ‘moral right to govern’ is invoked, especially in e-mail group discussions of the leisured class, where participants bask in each other’s over-inflated sense of moral self-worth.
The historicist critique of morality
The one key question to answer is why EDSA 2’s moral politics was able to transform itself into a political force that was sufficient enough to depose Joseph Estrada. The historicist critique says that social conditions and circumstances shape the morality of a particular moment. If so, what then could be these ‘social conditions and circumstances’ that have helped shaped EDSA 2’s moral foundations into the force that it is at this particular moment? This essay hazards the following tentative observations.
The target was an outsider
EDSA 2’s moral foundations are shaped as such because the target, Joseph Estrada, was an elite outsider, a ‘black sheep’ who infuriates elite and middle class sensibilities. The best way to show this is to compare Joseph Estrada’s moral worth with that of Fidel Ramos. Joseph Estrada is a womaniser, and he acknowledges this. He explains that this was his private sin, that he will ask forgiveness for from his God in due time, and that he has not been remiss in providing for his mistresses and his children. Fidel Ramos, too, has more than one woman in his life. If the PCIJ report was right, Rosemarie ‘Baby’ Arenas is Fidel Ramos’s mistress, and they have a grown son. But Fidel Ramos has never publicly acknowledged this fact. Media and high society wags were scandalized by the Baby Arenas story because it was a juicy tale of gossip. In Estrada’s case, the response was more like, ‘So what else can you expect from Estrada’?
Both Estrada and Ramos inevitably had to deal with gambling lords, a historical fact of Philippine politics and governance. Ramos introduced the national lottery (lotto) to draw the ‘mass base’ away from jueteng towards a more rationalised, legalised gambling, where gross takes are managed by more transparent bureaucrats rather than dubious gambling lords. Beyond that was a quid pro quo arrangement, and jueteng did not wither away. Estrada, in contrast, tried to introduce the local bingo lottery to compete with jueteng, and instead of forcing a quid pro quo arrangement, triggered a revolt from entrenched gambling lords led by Chavit Singson, who considers himself Estrada’s friend and buddy.
The rest is now history. Both presidents’s policies towards jueteng were essentially the same, the only difference being that Ramos was more ‘sophisticated’ and perhaps a better manager of conflict.
Ramos was a principal architect of human rights violations as head of the Philippine Constabulary under martial rule. He was, in many ways, organised, systematic, and ‘professional’ in doing this job. Estrada was a small-town mayor, and his links with human rights violations stem only when he became head of the Ramos-created Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC), which was under the direct control of Panfilo Lacson. Compared to Ramos, Estrada was simply a local goon on whose hands vast police powers suddenly landed. In local parlance, ‘mas halang ang bituka ni Ramos’ (roughly translated, Ramos’s guts is more crooked). Yet Estrada is described by most of the media today as the more sinister, more insidious individual.
In terms of moral worth, thus, Ramos is ostensibly better than Estrada. Is this because moral standards change or becomes muted when it is ‘one of our own’, or when it is someone who is not as gross as Joseph Estrada is involved? Is it because the PMA-graduate, US-educated general -- who knows how to use civil society language like ‘empowerment’ and ‘sustainable development’ -- is much more respectable than the small-town, English-fumbling, grossly irreverent college drop-out? What if Joseph Estrada graduated from the University of the Philippines, was a member of either the Sigma Rho or Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternities, and hangs around with the cream of the crop of the Philippine education system? Would Estrada have been treated more ‘fairly’, and the relativity of morality twisted in his favour if this had been the case? The only palpable answer is that Estrada received that rough, unforgiving end of a relativist morality because he was what he was -- an outsider who infuriates sensibilities and who was not ‘elite enough’. The moral crusaders picked on Estrada because unlike a Ramos or even a Clinton, he was not as polished and well-thought of.
| EDSA Dos |
Morality’s class character
An effect of the moral politics of EDSA 2 is the blurring of the distinction between plunder and profiting privately from the perks of office. Plunder is defined as forcible or systematic robbery, to pillage, to rob, to strip, to take by force. Estrada now has seven charges of plunder, even if there is little evidence that he actually did rob, pillage, strip or loot the national treasury and the government. There is a lot of evidence that he has millionsæbut these millions came from jueteng, which is privately operated and not a public enterprise. Jueteng money does not come from government coffers. His millions may have come as well from friends he had helped, like Dante Tan of the BW infamy. Estrada, therefore, can be charged with profiting immensely from his position, and using his position to assist friends to make more money. The political economic term that comes closest to it is ‘rent-seeking’. This in no way comes close to ‘forcible or systematic robbery’. Yet ‘plunder’ is the common word used to describe what he has done.
In contrast, those who actually commit actual plunder are generally not called to account for their acts. The Commission on Audit has all the reports needed to be able to charge many a politician for plunder, yet these have rarely been acted upon. The antics of Ombudsman Aniano Desierto are most detestable. When Estrada was in power, his was one of the most silent offices in the bureaucracy, not raising even a whimper of protest when Estrada’s abuses were being reported. Now that Estrada is ousted, Desierto has burst from his cocoon to become Manila’s main moral crusader.
After EDSA 1, there was pressure from militant groups for government to prosecute those who were guilty of plunder. But then Corazon Aquino’s government was in no mood for ‘vindictiveness’ and was instead keen on ‘reconciliation’. Hence, the space to be morally outraged was limited only to those pesky activists and left-wing belligerents. The more ‘fashionable’ thing to do then was to ‘forgive and forget’ on top of the sentiments of victims. Today, the space for moral outrage has expanded. It is more ‘fashionable’ to express criticism of Estrada. The key lesson here is that moral outrage also has a class character -- it is heard, reproduced and reinforced only when those being outraged are the elite and the middle class -- the vociferous, articulate classes, who have the time and resources to engage in text messaging, e-mail discussions, etc. In contrast, the peasant whose land was grabbed can only keep his moral outrage in silence.
Estrada’s support comes from the uneducated masa, anyway
Perhaps another key social condition that has allowed EDSA 2’s moral politics to run amuck was that Estrada’s base of political support came largely from the filthy, uneducated masses. The ‘dignified’ activists have refused to join Estrada and treated him askance from the very beginning, thinking they would stoop so low in doing so, and didn’t want to dirty their hands, dealing with a ‘bobo’. In the December 1999 meeting of the IPD Board of Trustees, Edicio dela Torre registered a pained question that was never answered. Dela Torre said that at any given time, there were reformers inside and outside of government. During the time of Ramos, the relationship between these two sets of reformers was one of complementation. When Estrada’s time came, the situation was changed drastically: the reformers who consciously chose to remain outside systematically vilified those who chose to be inside. Dela Torre asked, ‘Why didn’t “civil society” engage Joseph Estrada in the way they engaged Fidel Ramos’? Was it because Ramos spoke their language and Estrada didn’t? Was it because Ramos thought in terms of ‘GO-NGO interfaces’, and moved to organise ‘structures’ that gave respectability, space and platforms to those in the upper rungs of civil society hierarchies, while Estrada didn’t bother to recognise their sense of self-worth? It can also be asked, why didn’t the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines engage Estrada in the way they engaged Ferdinand Marcos for years? Is it also because the bishops have sneering contempt for Estrada, a disgrace to the Jesuit-run Ateneo, than for a protestant Ramos who raised a Blessed Virgin statue in front of Camp Crame in 1986?
Maybe it should be asked if EDSA 2’s morality would have changed had Estrada had a Cardinal Sin for a spiritual adviser, and not a stubborn penguin with a lower-class cocky accent, Mike Velarde. What if the gorgeous and glamorous Ayalas and Zobels were the ones who benefited from Estrada’s largesse, instead of these disdainful taipans and intsik-behos -- would the same amount of moral outrage have been registered?
Joseph Estrada was, in many ways, an easier target for moral outrage. If a more respectable, polished, refined, elegant, cultured and sophisticated politician been elected president and embroiled in the same jueteng controversy, this person wouldn’t have suffered the same fate as Estrada. Speaker Manuel Villar and Senate President Franklin Drilon wouldn’t have withdrawn their support at the critical moment and joined the ranks of the opposition. Chavit Singson might have not come out at all with his testimony. And Angelo Reyes and Orlando Mercado wouldn’t have betrayed the person who put so much trust in them.
Estrada was an easy target because he lacked articulate, vociferous middle class support, and he parleyed to the wrong elite crowd. His support came clearly from the lower classes, and many times these masses have been blamed for putting such an idiot as Joseph Estrada into power. Erap-bashing, quite often, easily degenerates into masa-bashing. This statement has been argued elsewhere by this writer, and it generated a response from one of the many crusading intellectuals of the anti-Erap front. The overlord of the pilipinasforum e-mail discussion group responded by asking for empirical evidence. He says he’s never seen a single placard of streamer or leaflet in any anti-Estrada rally he’s joined that attacked the masa. His naivety is astounding! Who in his right mind would ever come out publicly with a banner saying, ‘Ibagsak ang masa, Ibagsak si Erap!’? This self-styled intellectual is obviously oblivious to the many times that the masa had been blamed for Estrada’s ascendance to power in his discussion group. Or he may have been perfectly aware of it, but considered such blame-making as statements of fact rather than middle-class prejudiced opinions against the masa.
Then there are those who are more sympathetic to the masa who have tried to put more rigor in their explanations of why the masa has come to such a state. One poet went on record saying that it is because the ‘ideology of corruption’ permeates from the top to the lowest rungs of society. Corruption is the masa’s ideology. This statement echoes shades of the ‘dominant commercial culture’ theory that says that because of dominant cultural values, the masses come to accept and believe the existing order. The masses develop what is called as ‘false consciousness’ -- the consciousness that allows them to believe in Joseph Estrada The Moron, and to reject reason. This theory, however, has already been denied since the early ‘70s. More sophisticated notions of ideology emerged then, which established that meanings and messages can be constructed and decoded according to the social situation. Emphasis was placed on the agency -- the ability to discern, critically reflect, and act -- of the receiving audience. It argued in particular that the dominant ideology of the power elite, or such thing as the ‘culture of corruption’ that the poet referred to, can be read in many different, including ‘oppositional’ ways by its receivers. Rather than blame the masa, therefore, and dismiss them as uneducated (which is often seen as equivalent to the vastly different adjective called ‘unthinking’), what should be asked instead is what the masa see in Joseph Estrada -- or, what are the meanings and messages that they decode from Joseph Estrada’s persona. Do they see themselves more in Estrada and not in any of those elite politicians? If so, then their support for Estrada is a conscious, deliberate and legitimate choice that should be respected and not snootily rejected as products of depraved, unthinking minds.
Clearly, EDSA 2’s moral triumphs are not something to hark about, as is being done right now by the victors who are writing its history. There are many hidden prejudices lurking beneath its self-righteous morality.
But then, a question could be posed in response to the attack on EDSA 2’s moral politics. Despite the intellectual bankruptcy of the idea of ‘moral right to govern’, shouldn’t Filipinos (in the generic sense) be happy simply because it worked in Joseph Estrada’s case, and that at least, one big crook is now out of office? Yes, there is reason to be happy, but there are more than enough reason to be worried as well because this newfound moral righteousness, if it becomes the central defining standard of Philippine politics, will lead to an equally prejudiced, exclusionary, selective anti-masa politics that is couched, justified and defended in terms that make all contrary opinion heretical and not moral. These are quite tricky conceptual grounds, so long-winded explanations are in order.
The opposite of being moral is being immoral, defined as being wicked, corrupt, debauched, etc. But there is also such as thing as being amoral, which encompasses a wider range of definitions, from someone who is seen as unprincipled to a person who simply does not care at all. The principal difference of the immoral from the amoral is that the latter does not do the harm or offence directly, unlike the former, who is the direct source of the harm or offence. But what is being argued here is not immoral or amoral politics, but rather a politics that is ‘without’ or ‘outside morals’, that is, a politics divorced from the discussion of what is or is not moral. It argues for a separation of the political from the moral, or treating politics as an art of statecraft that is autonomous from the rules and ideals of morality.
| EDSA Dos |
A politics ‘without morals’
Morality or basic notions of right or wrong is fundamental to anyone’s politics. But what is being objected to here is the peculiar kind of morality -- the relative, changing and specific version of morality that underlaid the opposition to Estrada. This morality can be described as, borrowing words from Kant, purely nuomenal, that is, it is largely created from the mind and imagined by a group of people subject to a specific historicity. It is known from reason, from an ethical life imagined from what was learned from the church or the school. It is, therefore, very middle class Filipino, and it is largely, if not totally, independent from the phenomenal world, from the world of reality, from the world of work and instinct. This morality, which is the foundation of EDSA 2, is so different from the morality of the Pinoy masa.
Jueteng -- the ‘poor man’s’ lottery that has become an icon of popular culture -- explains this point quite clearly. Jueteng’s norms of honesty are quite legendary, but so is the following that it has developed. This writer’s grandmother, before she died at 84, was an avid jueteng aficionado. She bets as religiously as she goes to mass every day, and as sternfully as she kept her family intact (she was widowed early with 10 children). She was an honest civil servant (the town cashier) for 40 years, was a respected member of local Catholic organisations in Batangas City, and is admired for her strength of moral character. Yet she bets on jueteng, even if she knows it is illegal. Why? Because, it seems, that each bet she places represents a morsel of hope for her difficult life: the state could not provide her that hope; the church could only make her imagine that hope; but, ironically, jueteng lords could actually deliver that hope right to her very doorstep. So, on one hand, was her nuomenal morality learned from school, the church and the norms in a small-town bureaucracy. On the other hand was her sense of necessity developed from living a difficult phenomenal life. She was, like many other ordinary Filipinos, ‘balancing’ moral reason with practical decision- and choice-making. She has her own sense of fairness borne from this duality, and unlike the likes of Cardinal Sin, she does not hide her preference for jueteng. In many ways, the old lady captures the popular morality that the anti-Estrada opposition seems to have missed totally. This can best be described as ‘kapit-sa-patalim’ morality.
Amongst police officers who deal daily with all sorts of crime, there is a certain view that see jueteng in a different light. They say that of the different organised crimes they deal with, jueteng is the most benign. It does not do any harm to the economy, unlike smuggling that destroys industries and local trades. Jueteng also has a social function -- a portion of the money generated is eventually used for charity. In many areas, they say, if not for jueteng money, paupers will be buried without coffins, schools and churches won’t be renovated, and so on. The politician only rides on these processes. Jueteng money, thus, is much more ‘cleaner’ compared to money generated from drugs, protection rackets, prostitution or pornography. These police officers are able to see through these nuances of the phenomenon of jueteng by separating the moral from the political.
Joseph Estrada’s case is itself the best example of why politics and morality should be separated, at least in the analytical sense. Measured against the principles of morality, Joseph Estrada is an utter failure. He is corrupt and everything that his opponents charge him to be. But measured against a politics divorced from morals, a different Joseph Estrada emerges. He is the only president who campaigned and won primarily from the platform ‘Para sa Mahirap’. Despite his upper middle class origins, he is, whether we like it or not, a symbol of the poor. Whether for better or for worse, the working class see themselves in an Estrada wearing his wristband and walking with a swagger; the barely educated identifies with his legendary fumbles with the English language; the toiling peasant who is too busy earning a living can imagine himself sharing a meal with Estrada who eats with his hands. Perhaps Estrada is the only one, since Ramon Magsaysay, who has bridged the social distance between national office and ordinary everyday citizen, and this is his major difference from the politicians who preceded and replaced him. No one can argue against the votes he got, which becomes more spectacular given the resources employed to put him down.
Because Estrada was largely judged in moral and not political terms, it became extremely difficult to understand the considerable legitimacy and support he enjoyed from the masa despite his corruption, gambling, womanising, and so on. But Estrada is not alone in this regard. Philippine politics, as historians and journalists can show, is replete with examples of characters who are extremely repulsive by educated moral standards yet enjoy enviable widespread popularity, and even loyalty from their followers. Right after EDSA 1, the ‘Marcos loyalists’ were dismissed simply as paid minions -- ’opportunistic’ masses who benefited from the Marcos family’s largesse. But no one really bothered to look at why there was fanatical devotion to Marcos, or why he was able to convince many otherwise morally upright and educated people to join his cabinet. Then there are the enduring Asistios of Kalookan, the Josons of Nueva Ecija, the Duranos of Cebu, the Dimaporos of Lanao, and so on. How can the legitimacy, popularity and durability of these politicians be explained? The first key step suggested here is to evaluate these politicians in political, and not at all moral terms.
| EDSA Dos |
Understanding the Pinoy Politico
The quintessential Pinoy Politico is among the first to capture the value of separating the political from the moral. Their conception of morality appears to be quite simple: it is used and summoned only when it is convenient to do so. In front of needy constituents they can become charitable benefactors, even if they essentially are economic predators whose wealth and power depend on the exploitation of these constituents. To enemies, they can become violent, treacherous characters to be feared, even while they attempt to ‘soften’ their images to the public at large by doing charitable acts, helping a needy constituent, or hugging babies in front of cameras. When their power is consolidated, they sometimes become pious members of their churches. They are both loved and feared, cherished and loathed. Joseph Estrada seems to have deviated from this path. Perhaps because he was so successful and that he won despite the incalculable moral attacks launched against him, he started to enjoy his power in complete disregard of the rules of morality. In many ways, he himself is responsible for making it almost impossible to separate the political and moral in the public discourse. As Chavit himself said, ‘Naging sugapa’. The ‘balance’ therefore tilted against him.
The best example perhaps of a political family that has successfully maintained the ‘balance’ of what is moral (at least superficially) and political are the Asistios of Kalookan. The Asistios area typical Mafiosi family who have controlled the city’s politics for generations, and are well known for their violent ways. Luis ‘Baby’ Asistio, the incumbent representative was once convicted and jailed for murder, a leader of the Big Four gang that terrorised Metro Manila in the early ‘60s. He was eventually pardoned with full rights restored. Conspicuously displayed in his office is a symbol of overt piousness -- the image of the Santo Nino (child Jesus). Baby Asistio also has a reputation of never turning down a favour when requested of him face-to-face. He is, in short, a ‘magaling na kaibigan, mahirap na kalaban’ (good friend, fearsome opponent), one of the most admired traits in both the underworld and underclasses. Thus, Baby Asistio, the man jailed for murder in the 1960s, is a respectable person today, loved by his constituents. He has his independent, autonomous source of power, developed from his family’s links with their Kalookan constituency, and maintained through the years in the ‘Asistio’ way, that is, by maintaining a balance of their own peculiar form of morality with what is political. When he enters a political arena like the House of Representatives, he becomes someone you would rather have on your side.
It can be conjectured that politicians like the Asistios, early on in their careers, have recognised the difference between, on the one hand -- the politics reported by the media and the politics they have learned in school or from their moral leaders -- and on the other, the politics that they come face to face with when dealing with ordinary everyday people. They therefore distinguish between the ‘official’ and the ‘operative’ in the conduct of their politics. This is illustrated by no less than the language they use -- they constantly switch their language and terminologies depending on the audience they face. In large public gatherings, they can be heard talking about development, reform and other lofty ideals. They will project themselves as icons of fairness. In midnight meetings with relatives and cronies, however, they will talk about how to get certain appointments or government contracts, how to deal with dispatch against pesky opponents, without any tinge of moral angst -- issues that will immediately be reported as nepotism, corruption or treachery had they hinted about it in the public gathering. They therefore have public and private personas as well, summoned to the surface whenever necessary.
It must be reiterated that the key to the appreciation of these political processes is the relativity of morality. It does not mean that strongmen like the Asistios do not recognise any moral authority. They are, after all, rational persons with basic concepts of good and evil. But what they do is to play the game of politics by its unwritten rules -- a process whereby the most controversial questions are settled in an adhoc, informal or extemporised manner -- with each one adopting his own position based on calculations of the balance of forces or balance of risks involved. Since morality has no one in a position of authority -- which principally distinguishes it from law and religion -- no one can impose their standards of morality on these strongmen. They make their own, and make sure that they are judged -- at least by the constituents from whom they draw political support -- according to these self-made rules. The essential lesson is that they operate in a complex moral system and could not be made to account for simplistic moral codes. What may be reported as corruption by the media may be seen, in their context and by their constituents, as exemplary acts of charity by a trustworthy political leader. Thus, what the bishops and the middle class see as Joseph Estrada’s disdainful immorality may be seen very differently by the masa Estrada shares a language with.
Chavit Singson’s expose exemplifies this complex moral system. By his standards, Joseph Estrada has violated these ad hoc moral codes by being ‘sugapa’ and lusting for the entire jueteng loot. So Singson, the archetypal gambling lord who has made millions and used violence many times to protect his enclave, and who definitely has a longer list of sins than the upstart Estrada, has come out denouncing the ‘lord of jueteng lords’, in order to ‘right a wrong’. In his speeches, he maintains that he fears no one, that he doesn’t fear death anymore, because ‘he is already dead’, perhaps an allusion that he has lost his soul a long time ago. He stresses that for him, it is better to be dead with his face and ‘honour’ intact than to live and constantly sustain Malacañang’s jueteng lord. Singson the jueteng lord thus became an instant champion, a star of the anti-Estrada opposition. For those who felt queasy sharing the same frontlines as Singson, the lesson is quite clear: it is pointless to make these strongmen to account for conventional moral standards.
Neither should we expect these strongmen to keep themselves as partisans for some stronger ruler. The last Faustino Dy Sr. of Isabela, for instance, initially an ally of the anti-Marcos opposition but switched to become a staunch Marcos supporter after martial law was declared, was a master of strategic political calculation. At the height of Marcos’s rule in the mid-70s when the political opposition was practically dead, he provided refuge to communist ideologues and guerrillas -- including Jose Maria Sison and Bernabe Buscayno -- who were cornered by the military in the province. This would appear as a colossal risk he took, yet in his calculations, perhaps, it was simply a small favour he invested in a ragtag army that can potentially become a future key player in Philippine politics. His instincts are, thus, more of a gambler’s than the typical politician reared in loyalty to his party. Political correctness, as conventionally defined, is something he would have laughed at.
An understanding of the complex moral world of the Pinoy Politico can be the key to any successful challenge to their power. An example that illustrates wise use of this complex moral world is the experience of a successful southern Luzon representative who challenged the warlord family in their province. Since it was futile to neutralise the coercive force of this warlord by a purely moralistic campaign, this candidate pulled an ace by calling in a well-known Alex Boncayao Brigade chieftain. The ‘presence’ of this veteran assassin though, was not used to threaten the warlord and his goons with the possibility of an equally devastating counter-violence -- it was utilised to simply put forward a request loaded with meanings for a fair, honest fight, an usapang lalaki, in the contest. A potentially explosive situation was thus diffused -- with only the reputations for violence (not acts of violence) and underworld palabra de honors staked in the contest. With violent forces conveniently laid on the sidelines, this candidate went on to win as representative. The slide into open conflagration was diffused using the ad hoc moral codes of well-known men of violence.
There are more examples showing how ad hoc conceptions of morality and political correctness are summoned in the resolution of controversial problems in local politics. A rido or clan feud in many Muslim areas is usually settled with the intervention of a third party -- usually a more powerful force or a personality held in high esteem by the clans involved. These feuds are resolved easier when the issues revolve around economic or political competition. The most difficult ones -- which sometimes take generations to settle -- are the ridos involving personal honour where the loss of face of persons involved are extremely difficult to restore. Generally, therefore, killings that resulted in the fight for elective offices, control of rackets or property are much more easier to resolve than, say, when a member of one clan openly humiliated and slapped in public a member of another clan. But then again, there have been cases involving loss of face that were easily resolved by simple acts of humility by the offending party (like when the offended is visited by the offender alone and without bodyguards, and takes his shoes or slippers off when entering the house, to apologise.
Other elements that can be identified in this complex moral world are the ritual kinship ties from which different values emerge. When one local strongman becomes godfather to the child of another strongman, both expect each other to come to each other’s aid when needed, or at least minimise competition between the forces they control. A serious and irreparable break is indicated by the phrase, saulian ng kandila (returning of the candles). The practice is for the ninongs to keep the candles used in the baptismal ceremony. The candles therefore become symbolic of their ties and the alliance they have built. As long as the candles are held by the ninongs, word of honour dictates that both sides respect the contracts of their alliance. These processes are more stable and binding than formal party memberships of local politicians, basic orientation seminars, or oaths of party allegiance.
| EDSA Dos |
The Trapo as baggage
The concept that has become the single most powerful idea that confuses the political with the moral is the word trapo. A convenient and easy word to use, the wide currency of the use of the term trapo is seen by some as an indicator of ‘new politics’ taking root. But this is also symbolic of how the problem of local strongmen and politicians like Joseph Estrada are approached in highly moralistic terms. Trapo is always spoken from a moral high ground, and presupposes certain moral codes that the trapo violates. Trapo is used rather loosely and relatively. There are no particular rules on how it should be used, or under what conditions it should be invoked. But most peculiar is that the object of the term trapo does not seem to care -- usually, local strongmen are not bothered at all if they are called ‘trapo’ or not. They don’t change their ways, because at the end of the day, these ways remain durable and effective. Trapos simply become objects of ridicule of the morally-correct, but whether any significant impact is made on the dynamics of the support they get is highly doubtful.
The construction of the concept of the trapo is thus made from a politically moralistic viewpoint, but its decoding is another matter. Followers of Joseph Estrada may appreciate what trapo means, but never would they associate the concept with the politician that they know personally, whose life they have followed through the years, and who has, whether rightfully or wrongfully, done for them more good than any other politician or benefactor. Others perhaps, like those who support the Dimaporos or the Duranos, when presented with the concept, might see it as irrelevant to their lives -- what the heck do they need using the term trapo for when through all the years, in their eyes, the security of their family was provided by the powerful strongman they support -- the politician who is in direct contact with their lives, unlike institutions of the state which remain distant and aloof to their plight. Thus, even the definition of trapo becomes relative: there is the contemptuous Trapo that the left and the progressives refer to; and there is the poor man’s Trapo, appreciated differently by people for whom he performs indispensable social functions.
Conclusion
The basic argument of this essay is that theorising on contemporary Philippine politics has been limited and crippled immensely by moralistic philosophies employing conventional rationality -- like those which found its ‘flowering’ in EDSA 2. The typical Filipino politician is always evaluated and appreciated, especially by the morally correct as well as those who call themselves ‘progressive’, from a moral and rational high ground. As a result, the dynamics of their interaction with ordinary people, the bases of their support, and the sources of their legitimacy, are often missed. Such morality, when left unchecked, can lead to the ‘institutionalisation’ of anti-masa, selectivist politics.
The result of EDSA 2 is the main evidence supporting these arguments. On that fateful Tuesday on the week EDSA 2 took place, the Senate with a vote of 11-10 decided not to open the second Jose Velarde envelope. This caused the national uproar that led to EDSA 2. On Wednesday, Estrada offered to testify -- to tell everyone his side of the story once and for all. But, as Joker Arroyo said, it was ‘too little, too late’. The impeachment was going to be decided in the streets. And it was. So Estrada was out of Malacañang that weekend. Estrada was ousted indeed, but what the euphoric anti-Estrada forces of EDSA missed was the chance to deal a far more effective blow against the whole system of corruption. With his back against the wall, Estrada was ready to admit that he was indeed Jose Velarde, as everybody suspected. But the crucial thing was that he was not the only one who ‘owned’ that money. There were many of them -- friends, cronies, even some members of the then opposition. Estrada was, in a sense, ‘sacrificed’ to keep these other faceless personalities from being exposed. Estrada also wanted to expose the spin that Chavit Singson put in his testimony -- that Chavit ‘sanitised’ his version of the story to prevent other important names and ‘friends’ from being dragged into the mess. Estrada was willing to point his fingers to those many others whose own sticky fingers are inside the messy pot of corruption. Estrada perhaps also wanted to show that there are many, many more ‘Jose Velarde’ accounts throughout the country -- billions in jueteng money deposited in banks that would have rocked the industry to its foundations had there been a bank run of jueteng lords and jueteng-tainted politicians. As the multitudes in EDSA danced in celebration, and as the victorious moral crusaders recited lofty praises to each other’s bravery and moral resolve, the main bulk of the dung heap of corrupt politicians heaved a sigh of relief at the temporary space they got for themselves. Only a piece of dung, definitely not the biggest, was removed and flushed down, with much of the rest recycled back with credibility into the new administration. It is nearly tragic-comic -- the moral doing a great big favour for the immoral. A new chapter in Philippine politics has now opened, with the issues of the past almost completely unresolved. #
Published in EDSA 3: Uncensored Perspectives (April 2002) by Friends of EDSA 3, Manila, Philippines.
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