Quo vadis, Gloria?

Perry Diaz .

FORMER President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took over a country that was corrupt.  She ruled for nine years.  When her presidency was over, the country was more corrupt than when she took over.  But before her term ended, she tried to change the Constitution to allow her to run for a second six-year term.  She almost pulled it off.  But the Supreme Court thumbed her down.

But never one who gives up easily, she ran to represent her congressional district in Pampanga, which she handily won.  But then the administration of her successor, former President Benigno Aquino III, charged her with multiple cases of plunder.

What followed was a comedic charade.  Gloria claimed that she had some neck problems that required special treatment available only in Germany.  She started wearing a neck brace and used a wheelchair to move around.  When she tried to leave the country, then Justice Secretary Leila de Lima blocked her at the gate at the airport.  She was then detained at the Veterans Hospital and later moved to her own home under house arrest.  She performed her duties as a congresswoman from the confines of her house.  She was reelected twice to a three-year term.

In July 2018, with just 11 months remaining on her third and last term, she pulled a spectacular coup d’état just before Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (Sona).  Arroyo’s blitzkrieg assault on Speaker Alvarez was swift and no sooner had the spectators in the chamber realize what was happening, Arroyo was sworn in as Speaker.  Duterte claimed that he was not aware of what was happening until it was a fait accompli. Duterte was seemingly clueless of what the hell happened.  After all, Alvarez was Duterte’s most trusted man, handpicked for the job to run the House of Representatives for him.  Apparently, it was not enough to keep his job.

There were talks that Duterte’s daughter Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio and Alvarez didn’t get along.  Gloria must have seen the friction between the two and worked to secure the support of Sara. Without Sara’s support, Gloria would have just been another washed out congresswoman in her last year in office.

The coup d’état was bloodless.  But Alvarez must have been hemorrhaging emotionally.  It was a stab in the back from Gloria, his erstwhile Deputy Speaker, which reminds me:  Wasn’t that exactly what happened when then Vice President Gloria Arroyo ousted Estrada in 2001 with the help of Estrada’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff?  Indeed, it’s déjà vu all over again.

Gloria’s alliance with Duterte goes way back to the early days of her presidency when she offered then-Mayor Duterte to lead a police task force that would target kidnap gangs and the illegal drug trade.  Gloria must have been impressed of how Duterte brought law and order back in Davao City, which was then known as the country’s “murder capital” in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Had Duterte accepted Gloria’s offer, he would have taken over the National Anti-Crime Commission and the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force that Gloria had abolished.  Duterte said he would rather take up the role of adviser because he didn’t want to give up his job of running Davao City.

It did not then come as a surprise when Gloria and Sara developed spontaneous affinity and alliance.  But as is always in politics, one wonders what concessions did Gloria give Sara to get her support?  Something like that comes with a price… a huge price.  It’s quid pro quo, right?

In my column, “How high would Sara go?”(September 2018), I wrote, “While Duterte-Carpio had said that she is not running for Senator, it is not set in stone.  She might reconsider running if there is an overwhelming move to draft her.  My crystal ball shows that she would eventually accept a draft.

“What about Arroyo, whose term in the House of Representatives will be termed out in 2019?  My crystal ball has been blinking like a speeding ambulance lately.  Yes, Gloria would accept a nomination and if nobody nominates her, she’ll use a trick from her bag of tricks, which makes one wonder: Why?  Well, where else would she go?  With Federalism gasping for dear life, she has nowhere to go.  That leaves the Senate the only place where she can go unless she’d go for the presidency. But that is wishful thinking.  But the Senate would bring her closer to the apex of power.  Once she’s elected Senator, what would it take for her to grab the Senate Presidency, the third in the presidential line of succession?  Easy.  As corrupt as she was once, she’d just have to buy her peers in the Senate with lots of promises.  Heck, Janet Napoles pulled the Pork Barrel scam some years back, and she was just a fixer!”

But politics is like playing basketball – one, two, three.  You dribble the ball around the opposing players, position yourself, and shoot the ball.  While good players have better chances of scoring, there is no guarantee that you’d make a score.  Like they say, “The ball is round.”  In all indications, Gloria was good at playing by the rules of the game, or sometimes… maybe most of the times, by her own rules.  But she didn’t shoot the ball this time.  What the heck happened?

Whatever happened since the July coup d’état, my crystal ball was wrong.   Sara decided to run for reelection with her younger brother as her vice-mayoral running mate and Gloria ended up in nobody’s senatorial slate.  She’ll be termed out by the time the newly elected senators take their oath of office on June 30, 2019.  She’ll then exit from public service… unless she has an ace up her sleeves.  But she always has an ace to play with.  So what’s her game plan?

After a month in the powerful Speakership, Gloria announced in an interview with CNN that she’s leaving politics when her term ends.  She even nixed speculation that she’s aiming to become prime minister under a federal system of government, which Duterte has been pursuing. But for someone who said that “public service” was emblazoned in her DNA, it’s unimaginable that the 71-year-old Gloria — master of the “politics of patronage” – would step aside, devoid of power and influence.  Simply put, that’s not her character.  That is not Gloria.

It’s interesting to note that Duterte’s draft federal constitution provides for a presidential form of government similar to that of the United States. Actually, upon close scrutiny, it mirrors the US’s concept of federal government. However, Congress has yet to decide through a Charter Change (Cha-Cha) whether to form a Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) or a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) to craft the new Constitution, which would then be submitted in a referendum.

And this is where Gloria, as Speaker, could influence the outcome of Cha-Cha to be a parliamentary form of government that would result in the creation of a ceremonial President, the Head of State, and a Prime Minister, the Head of Government.  The people at large would elect the President, while the members of Parliament would elect the Prime Minister among themselves.  All Gloria has to do is to win a seat in Parliament representing her district and then get the support of the majority of the members of Parliament. With her experience in Machiavellian wheeling and dealing, Gloria shouldn’t have any problem getting what she wants.  As they used to say, “What Gloria wants, Gloria gets.”

But what could get her off track is if Cha-Cha results in a US-like federal presidential system of government, just like the way Duterte wanted. That would certainly crush her dream. Her only option then would be to retire from public service or run for President in 2022.  But she would be running against a formidable – and younger — array of presidential wannabees that include Vice President Leni Robredo, Sara Duterte-Carpio, Grace Poe, and either of the Marcos heirs, Bongbong or Imee. The question is: Can Gloria beat them?

Quo vadis, Gloria?

E-mail: PerryDiaz@gmail.com