'Social volcano'
'Social volcano'
Updated 09:05pm (Mla time) Sept 13, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 14, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
I REMEMBER again that in the last few years before martial law, many politicians were warning about the "social volcano." Much of it was rhetoric--the times called for strident language and reformist, if not revolutionary, posturing. This was a time of great ferment. Activism was sweeping the campuses like "a prairie fire," to use a phrase much favored by the activists.
But this was also a time of great uncertainty. The elections of 1969, the one that saw Ferdinand Marcos reelected (the first time a postwar Filipino president had gotten so) had depleted the national coffers and sent the peso on a tailspin. Three months after the elections, the peso devalued almost by half, from P2 to one dollar to close to P4 to a dollar. Prices zoomed, including those of oil, which precipitated rallies, some of them violent ones. The ensuing hardships highlighted the gap between rich and poor, a condition politicians described as a simmering social volcano about to explode.
"Here is a land," Ninoy Aquino said, "in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of the slums.... Here is a land of privilege and rank, a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste."
Everyone predicted a revolution was in the offing. The masses could not take more of this, opposition politicians and radicals alike warned. The maMs Arroyo was building up, the volcano would soon explode.
But there were others who foresaw a different turn of events. Poverty and uncertainty, they said, did not necessarily lead to revolution, they often led to iron-fisted rule. All over Southeast Asia, they said, authoritarianism had become the norm. It was just a question of time before the idea took root in this country, too. It may not be long, they warned, before the man on horseback came to pick up the crown from the mud with the point of his sword.
On Sept. 21, 1972, he did. Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law.
I remember these things not just because the 32nd anniversary of martial law is just a week away but because I have a powerful feeling of deja vu. There's an uncanny parallel between then and now.
This may not be a time of great ferment, but this is a time of great uncertainty, anxiety, if not activism, sweeping through the length and breadth of the country like a prairie fire. Though you never know about the activism, it can always blow into a prairie fire at a moment's notice. I recall that it grew to epic proportions more than three decades ago only after the elections of 1969, specifically two months later, in January 1970 (elections then were held in November), when the First Quarter Storm first howled. Uncertain times have a way of fanning dissent, or gathering angry voices into a chorus.
But as it was then, this is a time of great hardship coming off elections. As it was then, this is a time when the public coffers have been depleted by a President who was determined, by hook or by crook, by Cebu and by Comelec, to win a second term. As it was then, this is a time of skyrocketing prices, notably those of oil, which have sparked earnest protests, if not violent rallies. As it was then, this is a time at least of threatened currency devaluation, if not an actual one, though the actual one may not be very far behind. More so than then, this is a time of gloom and anxiety, with economists warning of an oncoming economic collapse as a result of a gaping budget deficit.
And as it was then, this is a time when the public cannot trust its government to pluck it out of the crisis, believing its government to be the very source of the crisis. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is nearly exactly in the same position Marcos was before martial law: She lacks credibility and is hugely unpopular. Uncannily she is burdened as well by a spouse who puts a face on profligacy. She has Mike Arroyo to Marcos' Imelda, and Imelda was so much prettier. Indeed, unlike Marcos who was believed to have won the elections even if he used inordinate amounts of force and farce, Ms Arroyo is thought by 55 percent of Filipinos not to have won the elections at all.
That is heady brew. The tempting thing is to imagine that this will midwife a revolt as the masses reach their threshold of tolerance for pain. That is possible. Even now you hear cries and whispers from various sectors, from the aggrieved candidates in the last elections as well as from the NGOs who were not compromised with the Peace Bonds, about the possibility of ousting the government if things get out of hand.
But there is another possibility. Which is that as the crisis deepens, Ms Arroyo will be tempted to take the option of mounting iron-fisted rule. It need not take the form of an outright declaration of martial law, though that can't be entirely dismissed. It could always take the form of a de facto martial law, using the instruments of martial law. I remember that when I suggested this some months ago, several Ms Arroyo supporters wrote me angrily to say Ms Arroyo was not Marcos.
But why so? The same scale of ambition is there, the same recklessness, the same capacity to lie, cheat and steal. More to the point, we do not lack for proof of her capacity to do so: that was what her "war against terror" was all about. It was disguised martial law. And desperate times are always an engraved invitation to curtailing rights. As it is, we do not lack for fools, in the form of fawning supporters, who have been asking her to call for a state of emergency to deal with a crisis of her own making.
There is another George, apart from Bush, named Santayana, whose wise counsel has been repeated to triteness but which remains apt for us:
Those who do not heed their history are bound to repeat it.
Updated 09:05pm (Mla time) Sept 13, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 14, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
I REMEMBER again that in the last few years before martial law, many politicians were warning about the "social volcano." Much of it was rhetoric--the times called for strident language and reformist, if not revolutionary, posturing. This was a time of great ferment. Activism was sweeping the campuses like "a prairie fire," to use a phrase much favored by the activists.
But this was also a time of great uncertainty. The elections of 1969, the one that saw Ferdinand Marcos reelected (the first time a postwar Filipino president had gotten so) had depleted the national coffers and sent the peso on a tailspin. Three months after the elections, the peso devalued almost by half, from P2 to one dollar to close to P4 to a dollar. Prices zoomed, including those of oil, which precipitated rallies, some of them violent ones. The ensuing hardships highlighted the gap between rich and poor, a condition politicians described as a simmering social volcano about to explode.
"Here is a land," Ninoy Aquino said, "in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of the slums.... Here is a land of privilege and rank, a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste."
Everyone predicted a revolution was in the offing. The masses could not take more of this, opposition politicians and radicals alike warned. The maMs Arroyo was building up, the volcano would soon explode.
But there were others who foresaw a different turn of events. Poverty and uncertainty, they said, did not necessarily lead to revolution, they often led to iron-fisted rule. All over Southeast Asia, they said, authoritarianism had become the norm. It was just a question of time before the idea took root in this country, too. It may not be long, they warned, before the man on horseback came to pick up the crown from the mud with the point of his sword.
On Sept. 21, 1972, he did. Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law.
I remember these things not just because the 32nd anniversary of martial law is just a week away but because I have a powerful feeling of deja vu. There's an uncanny parallel between then and now.
This may not be a time of great ferment, but this is a time of great uncertainty, anxiety, if not activism, sweeping through the length and breadth of the country like a prairie fire. Though you never know about the activism, it can always blow into a prairie fire at a moment's notice. I recall that it grew to epic proportions more than three decades ago only after the elections of 1969, specifically two months later, in January 1970 (elections then were held in November), when the First Quarter Storm first howled. Uncertain times have a way of fanning dissent, or gathering angry voices into a chorus.
But as it was then, this is a time of great hardship coming off elections. As it was then, this is a time when the public coffers have been depleted by a President who was determined, by hook or by crook, by Cebu and by Comelec, to win a second term. As it was then, this is a time of skyrocketing prices, notably those of oil, which have sparked earnest protests, if not violent rallies. As it was then, this is a time at least of threatened currency devaluation, if not an actual one, though the actual one may not be very far behind. More so than then, this is a time of gloom and anxiety, with economists warning of an oncoming economic collapse as a result of a gaping budget deficit.
And as it was then, this is a time when the public cannot trust its government to pluck it out of the crisis, believing its government to be the very source of the crisis. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is nearly exactly in the same position Marcos was before martial law: She lacks credibility and is hugely unpopular. Uncannily she is burdened as well by a spouse who puts a face on profligacy. She has Mike Arroyo to Marcos' Imelda, and Imelda was so much prettier. Indeed, unlike Marcos who was believed to have won the elections even if he used inordinate amounts of force and farce, Ms Arroyo is thought by 55 percent of Filipinos not to have won the elections at all.
That is heady brew. The tempting thing is to imagine that this will midwife a revolt as the masses reach their threshold of tolerance for pain. That is possible. Even now you hear cries and whispers from various sectors, from the aggrieved candidates in the last elections as well as from the NGOs who were not compromised with the Peace Bonds, about the possibility of ousting the government if things get out of hand.
But there is another possibility. Which is that as the crisis deepens, Ms Arroyo will be tempted to take the option of mounting iron-fisted rule. It need not take the form of an outright declaration of martial law, though that can't be entirely dismissed. It could always take the form of a de facto martial law, using the instruments of martial law. I remember that when I suggested this some months ago, several Ms Arroyo supporters wrote me angrily to say Ms Arroyo was not Marcos.
But why so? The same scale of ambition is there, the same recklessness, the same capacity to lie, cheat and steal. More to the point, we do not lack for proof of her capacity to do so: that was what her "war against terror" was all about. It was disguised martial law. And desperate times are always an engraved invitation to curtailing rights. As it is, we do not lack for fools, in the form of fawning supporters, who have been asking her to call for a state of emergency to deal with a crisis of her own making.
There is another George, apart from Bush, named Santayana, whose wise counsel has been repeated to triteness but which remains apt for us:
Those who do not heed their history are bound to repeat it.
posted by Dante at 9:39 PM
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