Will she?
Visualize the scenario: Gloria Arroyo in drab orange with a big “P” on her back (the “P” not signifying President but Prisoner), languishing in a women’s penal facility somewhere in the Philippines, mopping floors or scrubbing the grime off toilet bowls, her trademark pout now permanently lodged on her face.
She might not even be safe among the other, more hardened inmates. Or she could use her Machiavellian guile and deceit to corrupt her prison mates and become their cell boss.
Sounds grim, doesn’t it? Will it happen?
If you’re an Arroyo fan, such a denouement to the political life of the former “President,” can’t be any worse. Can you imagine the humiliation and the shame?
But if your heart cries out for justice for the victims of the Arroyo government, the abuse of authority, the utter disregard for the rights of people whom Arroyo didn’t like or who didn’t kowtow to her, and her sanctioning of the plunder and persecution against political and personal enemies by her allies and operatives, then you would find a jailed Arroyo poetic justice and just atonement.
Obviously such an unwanted fate is something that Arroyo will avoid at all costs.
The cases being slapped against the former occupant of the presidential palace are piling up by the week. They are mostly about plunder, misuse of public money, abuse of power, and election sabotage.
Whistleblowers are coming out of the woodwork. It appears the current political climate, with a reformist government in place, is right for people involved in, or knowledgeable of, wrongdoing committed during the Arroyo regime to unburden their consciences and let what they knew pour out into the open.
And they have been doing a lot of unburdening of breasts. One after another, they are emerging from their nine years of silence. Silence imposed by a ruthless government that brooked no dissent or disobedience when it was at the peak of its power, Even when scandals were already eroding the legitimacy of Arroyo’s government because of alleged election rigging, she managed to muzzle people who could have exposed her misdeeds.
Either through the persuasion of intimidation or the hot inducement of cold cash, Arroyo was able to zip up the lips of people who were either threatened or seduced (by money) to do her bidding.
But now, with the government of President Benigno Aquino III in place and out to expose and punish previous wrongdoers, some of the people who had knowledge of crimes committed by and for Mrs. Arroyo have found the courage to come out and reveal the secrets that they knew but kept sealed in their gagged memories.
As these exposes come out at a steady pace, the eyes of the Filipino people are trained on what the new government will do about them and whether it will succeed in prosecuting the cases against Mrs. Arroyo and her alleged accomplices.
Recent revelations indicate that Mrs. Arroyo has been able to amass redundant amounts of money, presumably plundered from the coffers of the republic which, of course, belonged to the Filipino people. This indicates that she will have the wherewithal to fight the charges against her — to enable her to hire the wiliest and most expensive lawyers around to get her off the hook. And they will do it by hook or by crook because being sent to jail would be like eternal damnation. Prison would be her personal hell.
At this time, five or six cases have been filed against Arroyo. More will come. Will they be enough to put her in daily orange dress and ankle bracelets?
There is the big “if.”
If Mrs. Arroyo were an ordinary citizen here, there will be no doubt that, for all the alleged crimes she has to answer for, she will find herself ultimately booking a cell in one of the Philippines’ penal facilities.
But she is a former “President” after all, and she still has considerable financial resources at her command. And she has allies in and out of government and former operatives still in place in the national bureaucracy who will do her bidding because they owe her for the money they were able to stash away through her patronage.
Sending Arroyo to jail, then, will depend on how resolute President Aquino will pursue the cases against her. It will depend on how air-tight the cases will be as crafted by government lawyers and private complainants. It will depend on how much of the government’s resources will be arrayed against Arroyo and her expensive and high-flying defense attorneys.
There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Mr. Aquino wants to prosecute those who committed crimes against the people during the Arroyo administration, including herself. Exposing corruption and crimes made possible by abuse of power were, after all, the underlying issues of Aquino’s campaign in the last presidential election. He had tied himself to this main issue as the linchpin of his candidacy. He will have to finish what he had started.
But, more than Mr. Aquino’s resolve to push the cases against Mrs. Arroyo to their final resolution, sending her to jail will depend on how the Philippine justice system will respond to the challenge.
The justice system here has been found wanting over the course of history. Basically, it is a system that favors the rich and powerful and punishes the poor and powerless. It is a system that’s notorious for allowing bargaining, again through monetary considerations, over the fate of court cases. This is a judiciary that catches the small fry but lets the big fish get away.
So, the big “if” will be whether the justice system will side with the people or whether it will favor a former leader who still has the necessary connections.
There is, of course, a precedent in that a former President had been sent to jail before. Mrs. Arroyo’s predecessor, President Joseph Estrada, was convicted of plunder (he was pardoned by Mrs. Arroyo). The justice system can work when prodded on by massive public opinion.
So, will Gloria Arroyo ultimately land in jail?
It will be a long process. Arroyo’s lawyers and political allies will attempt to drag the cases against her in what will seem to be an eternity. Long enough for a new administration in 2016 that would be friendlier to her.
(At this writing, Gloria Arroyo is back in hospital to repair a metal brace recently inserted in her spine to correct a damaged back bone up to the neck. Her husband, alleged to have been involved in serious wrongdoing, has been battling a serious illness also.)
Her lawyers will try madly and desperately to divide the people and even try to provoke public disturbances. The government and the police will have to deal with potential civil unrest. It will be a long-drawn-out process.
But, ultimately, it will be a test of the integrity and the independence of the country’s justice system.
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Greetings to Toronto and to the whole of Canada! I am grateful to BALITA, and especially to Managing Editor Tess Cusipag, for welcoming MANILA OBSERVER to its pages. The Observer column is an independent analysis of events in the Philippines, an impartial look at national developments, and a non-partisan take on issues that confront the Filipino people. If it’s partisan at all, it is a partisan of truth and fairness. I am glad to be able to write for Fil-Canadians and Canadian friends of the Filipinos.
