At least he dressed right
August 12th, 2003
Only after the presumed fact has the government of Fidel Ramos (1992-1998) been accused of wrongdoing, and that’s in connection with, among others, its contracts with Independent Power Producers, and the so-called Centennial scam.
But accused of wrongdoing it has been—specially, though not only, by the Estrada camp, whose denizens still whine that their patron’s being discriminated against because no one’s running after Ramos for the billions that he allegedly amassed while President (and, some say, even while he was Corazon Aquino’s defense secretary). Simon-pure Ramos’ term wasn’t. But the biggest scandals (these don’t include that associated with a former lady friend, which was, as scandals went, small potatoes) came later.
If no one can accuse the former general and President of either poverty and sainthood, no one can accuse him of modesty either. Confronted by the six-years-without-reelection clause of the Philippine Constitution, Ramos tried to get the Constitution amended so he could run for another term because he was, in his own assessment, so good at the job.
That was yesterday. Today Ramos is still contemplating the possibility of getting another crack at the Presidency. Now that two other presidents have seen office since his term, Ramos can argue—and he has—that what the Constitution meant was that no one should serve two consecutive terms.
These having been said, one has to grant the Ramos government at least three things. The first is that there was no coup attempt at all for the entire duration of Ramos’ term. The second—which partly flows from the first—is that the country was relatively at peace from 1992 to 1998. The third is that, as the risk analysis digest Executive Intelligence Review points out, Ramos was the only one of the four (not five) post-Marcos presidents to be certifiably elected to the post and to complete his/her term.
Corazon Aquino left office upon completion of her six years, but her election to the Presidency has never been established to everyone’s satisfaction. Estrada of course left—or was booted out—half-way through his term. As for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, she was not elected to the post, despite all the noises her government makes about respecting “duly constituted authorities.”
Although the Aquino government initiated peace talks with the armed social and political movements, namely the National Democratic Front and the Moro National Liberation Front, it was Ramos who forged a temporary agreement with the first, and a final agreement with the second, as well as initiated talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It was also Ramos who made peace with the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa (the former Reform the Armed Forces Movement—RAM) and other military putschists.
The result was a period of relative peace—during the watch of a former general—as well as of economic stability. Although the Ramos government exaggerated the growth of the economy, and claimed the imminence of its “tigerhood,” the surveys of the time revealed that most citizens felt that their lot had improved rather than declined. While the improvement might have been slight and even marginal, that at least was improvement to which Filipinos are unaccustomed.
Ramos did put military men in posts formerly occupied by civilians, but at least two things many feared because of Ramos’ military background (which included chiefdom of the dreaded Philippine Constabulary) and his pro-American credentials did not occur: an escalated assault on civil liberties and human rights, and the country’s re-engagement with US strategic interests. While human rights violations did continue, they at least did not escalate, and while the government might have only been waiting for a decent interval to pass after 1990 before it mended fences with The Great White Father in Washington, it didn’t happen during Ramos’ watch. Instead both are happening during the watch of Arroyo.
So unused is the nation to anything positive—so hungry is it for good news no matter how insignificant—that the Ramos government is in fact in grave danger of being canonized as a golden era.
It was of course no such thing. But so awful have its successor governments been in comparison, that few can help accept that it was in several respects better. Part of the reason was Ramos’ work ethic. But even more critical was his unexpected capacity to weigh his options carefully, and to resist the temptation to act and even speak precipitately.
This care apparently included an awareness that not only words can convey messages. To assuage fears over his military background and to emphasize his work ethic, Ramos for example never wore a uniform even when visiting conflict areas, and favored a barong with sleeves folded for everyday wear. Compare this to the non-soldier Joseph Estrada, who wore fatigues when visiting Mindanao at the height of his all-out war against the MILF in 2000. (Subtlety was not among Estrada’s endearing virtues.)
But it was in the field of policy where Ramos in comparison excelled. Again despite his military background, Ramos apparently knew that the purely military solution against armed movements could never work. This belief was accompanied by the hard-nosed objective of using the peace talks to government advantage not only through a temporary cessation of hostilities, but also through exacting as many concessions as it can at the negotiating table towards—who knows?—the armed groups’ eventual surrender.
The Ramos government did succeed in this strategy as far as the MILF was concerned, to the extent of Nur Misuari’s accepting the governorship of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. While this success was not replicated in the NDF case, it at least succeeded in forging an initial agreement (the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees) as a basis for further negotiations.
Ramos has been criticized for signing a peace agreement with RAM and its allied putschist groups in 1995. Mrs. Arroyo’s statement blaming kid-glove treatment of putschists by past governments for the “resurgence of mutinies” could not but have alluded to Ramos’ refusal to prosecute them for the coup attempts from 1986 to 1989.
That agreement apparently did not guarantee a permanent stop to further coup attempts, and there was indeed a clamor for the prosecution of RAM and other groups at the time. But the relative wisdom of Ramos’ policy does seem to have since been proven in that it did take eight long years before another attempt was made—last July 27, 2003.
These are not matters of opinion but of fact, which even the most violent of Ramos critics cannot deny. No one can blame him for reacting angrily to Mrs. Arroyo’s statement, if only because hindsight now suggests that the Ramos peace initiatives did result in the government’s having enough breathing space to address—or at least to try to address—the country’s economic problems.
One can take issue with the approach to those problems, particularly with Ramos’ chosen policy of accelerating the globalization of the economy. History might yet conclude that he was a better political strategist than an economic manager.
The Arroyo administration, however, can still learn a few things from the Ramos period, among them the need to weigh its options carefully on the matter of, for example, Mrs. Arroyo’s allowing the military and civilian justice systems to take their course rather than making bellicose statements that can only be interpreted as attempts to influence them. It wouldn’t hurt for it either to forge a consistent approach—is it for negotiations today and for war tomorrow?—toards the NDF and the MILF.
In all these there is the “at least” qualifier. And yet every government—atleast—has to weigh its options carefully instead of blurting out what’s in its President’s mind depending on the mood of the moment. Unfortunately, the country has so reached the nadir of its expectations from government that it is now left only with that phrase for consolation—and equally sad that the Ramos period should now be its model of wise governance. These are desperate times.
(Today/abs-cbnNEWS.com, August 9, 2003)