What Mrs. Arroyo is saying…

When Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo filed her Certificate of Candidacy for the Congressional seat in her hometown, many, including former president Fidel V. Ramos, protested. For them, Mrs. Arroyo should resign her post as president out of delicadesa. They are not questioning the legality of the act–they are asking that Mrs. Arroyo, at least for once, exercise propriety.

And like in the past, their anger, their shouts of protests and their appeal for propriety will fail and fall on deaf ears.

Mrs. Arroyo and her minions know no moral code. The Arroyo mafia only knows one language, and that is, the language of Power. When one is in power, you do not listen to weaklings–you always lend an ear to the Strong. Obviously, this has been the halmark or the political brand so to speak, of this Arroyo administration. It pushes itself even to the point of weakness just to achieve a strategic objective. And in this case, the objective is Charter Change, which even the Executive secretary Eduardo Ermita had the gumption to admit in public.

And because it is for charter change, what better way to communicate that objective than to smear the very institution which Mrs. Arroyo used to legitimize her Constitutionally protected dictatorship? Mrs. Arroyo knew that by filing her Certificate of Candidacy, she, in effect, rendered the Office of the President inutile and indicated that the office is actually no crown jewel.

That act of filing the CoC heralds or signals the serious desire of Mrs. Arroyo and her minions to shift the locus of power from the Executive (as symbolized by the Office of the President) to the legislative. By “sacrificing herself”, Mrs. Arroyo is, in effect, saying that the Presidency is not important in the scheme of things in the future; rather the way to go is thru Congress. The serious image implications that this act of filing did, are nothing compared to the attainment of the real objective, that is charter change.

Was Arroyo’s act a game changer even in the national political sphere? Yes, it was. It was a sign that post-May 2010 would not be, nor ever would be a non-Arroyo administration. It shows that Mrs. Arroyo and her minions are determined to push charter change to its most logical conclusion, that of being made a law.

Now, another question is—will Arroyo succeed in her dastardly plan? By all means, yes, given the weakness of the Opposition and given a broken arrow as symbolized by those who desire reform.

Even if the Opposition wins the presidency, change will never occur because the locus of power will just be stolen by the very ones who designed for democracy to fail. If we expect the new president to be as powerful as Arroyo, we would surely be frustrated because the direction that this State is going is being changed slowly.

In fact, the game plan is simple–give the Opposition the presidency which will, in the future, exercise diminished powers under a New Charter. Come October 2010, the Opposition will be left holding an empty bag, since Power, the Real one, will shift from the Executive to the Prime Minister.

And yes, Juan, in the end, expect to see Mrs. Arroyo again holding the spectre of State Power.