Fatal damage
October 27th, 2003
The allegation that administration officials close to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as well as her lawyer tried to extort “tens of millions of dollars” from the German company Fraport AG could not have come at a worst time for her.
Mrs. Arroyo’s October 4 declaration that she would run in 2004 has practically killed the People Power Coalition by forcing three of its former member-parties to bolt it. Two high-profile administration figures, Senator Loren Legarda and Vice President Teofisto Guingona, have also quit Mrs. Arroyo’s Lakas-CMD party.
The October 4 announcement that Mrs. Arroyo was willing to make the supreme sacrifice by running in 2004 has itself been widely greeted with hoots of derision and accusations that she lied last December. What’s worse is the growing belief that she had announced her non-candidacy then to deceive everyone. That would include not only the opposition, which for a time was disarmed by the assumption that she was out of the 2004 picture altogether, but also the entire citizenry, which had begun to look at her as a stateswoman rather than the traditional politician she has always been.
It is true that the PROMDI, Reporma and Aksyon Demokratiko parties are minuscule formations with hardly any resources, and therefore any election machinery to speak of. But they have rallied behind the candidacy of Raul Roco, who has been consistently second in popularity among possible presidential candidates even during his past several months’ silence.
Roco may not have the machinery now. But his public support has remained consistent and stable. The high regard among the electorate he apparently enjoys even when he’s not saying anything, and is therefore not enjoying media attention, is a formidable advantage that can attract other forms of support. These can include defections to his group from among Lakas members uncertain of Mrs. Arroyo’s chances, and a flow of the donations and other assistance that can help his group build the machinery it needs for him to win in 2004.
Mrs. Arroyo’s support has been uncertain and unstable. She herself has ranked third and even fourth in almost every survey, despite her advantages as a very visible incumbent, and even while her December ploy was still regarded as sincere.
Her total support for George W. Bush’s asinine and dangerous policies, and the Philippines’ military re-engagement with the US under her watch—both obviously meant to pander to the traditional pro-Americanism of the electorate—may have also been miscalculations. Buffeted by economic uncertainty, crime and hopelessness, Filipinos disappointed with her and angered by the lavish welcome she has prepared for Bush while they worry over this month’s bills may not be as forthcoming with their support for a US-anointed candidate as in the past.
And then there are the corruption charges. Senator Panfilo Lacson’s charges of money-laundering and corruption against Mrs. Arroyo’s husband Jose Miguel Arroyo have so far been unsubstantiated. But there is evidence that they are nevertheless helping erode Mrs. Arroyo’s approval ratings further.
Mrs. Arroyo is suffering from the “Imelda syndrome” that once afflicted Ferdinand Marcos. Like Imelda Marcos during the Marcos period, Mike Arroyo is regarded as the worse half of the First Couple. A public made cynical by experience can believe anything about politicians. But even more especially can it believe the worst of those who share bed and board with those in power.
Wisely, Mrs. Arroyo kept her peace when Lacson accused Mike Arroyo of holding forth like Jabba the Hutt at his office in Makati’s LTA building, and keeping bank accounts under fictitious names. But she has since broken her silence, October 4 being the date when she chose to jump into the fray. What’s worse is that Mr. Arroyo has recently become a high-profile presence in the media, apparently on the mistaken assumption by his PR handlers that he is now his wife’s strength rather than her first weakness.
To this volatile brew has been added Fraport’s complaint before the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that Arroyo government officials and Mrs. Arroyo’s lawyer had tried to extort millions of dollars from the company.
Fraport financed the construction of the multi-million dollar Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 under a contract with the Philippine government. Fraport’s executives have alleged that Mrs. Arroyo’s legal adviser Avelino Cruz and her adviser for flagship projects Gloria Tan-Climaco had urged the company to get the Cheng family whose company, Philippine International Air Terminals Company (PIATCO) had the NAIA 3 contract, out of the project. Fraport its executives claimed Cruz and Climaco urged, should engage the services of Lawyer Arthur “Pancho” Villaraza, Mrs. Arroyo’s confidante and lawyer, in getting the Chengs out. It would then be able to operate NAIA 3.
Fraport claimed Villaraza demanded some US$70 million in exchange for his services, which Fraport executives said they turned down. The government then refused to pay the contractor what it had spent on the project, thus Fraport’s complaint before the ICSID, which could rule against the Philippine government and demand payment of some US$427 million to Fraport.
The government had earlier nullified the PIATCO contract to build and operate the new airport facility, citing provisions contrary to the public interest. Although completed, NAIA 3 is idle, awaiting the money the government needs so it can run it itself.
The Fraport charges would suggest that the contract was voided for reasons other than public interest, among them in retaliation for Fraport’s refusal to engage Villaraza’s services. The worst part of it is that it implies knowledge by, and even the involvement of, Mrs. Arroyo herself. Fraport’s description of Villaraza as a presidential fund-raiser was not made without the implication that he was raising funds for, among others, her 2004 campaign.
Villaraza, Cruz and Climaco have all denied Fraport’s charges, and they could very well be entirely innocent. But Fraport’s are the kind of charges that even at this early stage are bound to be publicly credible, first because one of the planet’s biggest airport operators made them; second because they were made before the World Bank; and third because they sound so plausible, unlike the Lacson charges.
In the case of the Lacson charges against Mrs. Arroyo and her husband, one is hard put to determine, in the first place, what the crime being imputed is, and on what evidence. In this instance, if true, the Fraport claim would constitute a real crime, to substantiate which Fraport would presumably have the evidence.
The Fraport claims are after all not the claims of a messenger who says he saw various checks made out to Jose Pidal, or of someone out for political advantage. In the court of public opinion, which matters most in a political season, these are charges that can better stand the test of credibility than Lacson’s, which means that they have already damaged Mrs. Arroyo in ways the next surveys should show.
Of course the Fraport scandal could go the way of others by being edged out of the media by a far more spectacular story. There is such a story, and it consists of what George W. Bush will say today during his eight-hour visit to Philippines, and how violently the police disperse demonstrators.
But unless Bush says something that can occupy the media for at least the next week, and the country ends up with a harvest of dozens of demonstrators dead, the reports on his visit are not likely to keep the Fraport charges out of the media for long. A key factor in their staying in the headlines is the Senate Blue Ribbon inquiry its chair Joker Arroyo has said he will conduct.
Such an inquiry will give Mrs. Arroyo’s opponents in the Senate a forum from which they can wring every ounce of political advantage from the issue, and inflict the most damage on her administration and her candidacy. Mrs. Arroyo needs another scandal the way she needs another Mike Arroyo. This one could be fatal.
(Today/abs-cbnNEWS.com, October 18, 2003)