Once upon a time, everything made sense. Ferdinand Marcos was evil, Benigno Aquino was good. Poverty was caused by the dictator and his Iron Butterfly, Imelda. The fastest progressing nation in the region became “the sick man of Asia” only because of the loss of democracy. There’s no better excuse for problems than having had a despot.
Last month’s Philippine elections however, prove that things aren’t that simple for us.
During the Marcos years, my family lived in Vancouver. My earliest memory of being Filipino was watching my parents glued to the television. People in yellow massed in Manila, linking arms, praying, singing. In EDSA, they peacefully confronted soldiers. The anchorman that night, declared: “We Americans like to think we taught Filipinos democracy. Well, tonight, they’re teaching the world.”
In 1986, People Power repudiated Marcos’s electoral fraud and enshrined as president Corazon Aquino. The EDSA Revolution inspired the world. It was bloodless, clean and simple. It brought my family home to a hopeful country.
In my first years back, I saw many illogical things. On the streets, kids my age sniffed glue and begged with glassy eyes. By the church, lepers held stumps out for coins. In government, movie stars, newscasters and basketball players ruled. My father entered politics, and I encountered deep poverty on the campaign trail. Unsuccessful coups rocked Aquino’s government.
In 1992, I saw Fidel Ramos, democratically elected president. His tenure inched us toward “Philippines 2000,” a plan to turn us into an industrialized country.
After Ramos’s six-year term, the actor Joseph Estrada won the top spot. Despite doubts about his ability and integrity, his landslide seemed to be a testament to mass movements and democracy. Hope crumbled quickly. As Estrada’s failures turned into outright crime, Filipinos were faced with a leader who let them down.
In early 2001, during the Second EDSA Revolution, I joined the thousands marching against Estrada. His Senate cohorts were handling his trial, and refused to open an envelope believed to contain damning evidence. We converged on EDSA. Songs were sung, prayers prayed, and jet fighters screamed across the sky as a sign that the military had switched their support. Estrada was ousted. His vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, took his place amid fanfare. Estrada was given a life term for plunder.
But in 2004, Arroyo reneged on her promise not to seek re-election. She faced Fernando Poe Jr., an iconic actor and pal of Estrada. Poe’s victory would likely have seen Estrada pardoned, and the cycle of disappointment would continue. Claims that Arroyo rigged the election seemed, to me, the lesser of two evils – as if it was better to have good people cheat than bad people win fairly. Arroyo’s goodness, however, was disappearing, gradually and then swiftly.
At first it was easy to dismiss her scandals as black propaganda, flung by those who’d backed Estrada. But the allegations grew kilometric. Her responses became insouciant. Arroyo’s popularity plunged lower than any president since Marcos. Like many, I saw the Philippines heading for a dead end. If this president had betrayed us, who else was there to lead us out of the hole dug by her predecessors? Many of those opposing Arroyo were the same people who sanctioned Estrada’s larceny. Was it Arroyo who was corrupt, or was it the system? This is an important question for our next president.
Now we’ve come to Noynoy Aquino, son of a martyr and a saint of democracy. Noynoy’s landslide speaks of his apparent integrity, the paucity of palatable alternatives and the bling of the Aquino brand. However noble Aquino’s intentions may be, he now faces a minefield of corruption, political patronage and shifting allegiances. Arroyo is sticking around like a virus – she’s won a seat in Congress and is maneuvering to be speaker of the house.
In a country where celebrity trumps ideology, nobody knows if Noynoy’s star power will give way to the idealism we hope he has. And if experience has taught us anything, nothing comes that easily. Ninety million people are watching, waiting. Please, Noynoy, don’t let us down.
(Editor’s Note: Syjuco is the son of Augusto Syjuco Jr., a politician allied with the party of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He received a degree in English literature from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2000 and completed his MFA from Columbia University in 2004. He is currently on a scholarship to undertake a PhD in English literature from the University of Adelaide.)