The Philippines in 2011: A year of impeachment, disasters

MANILA, Philippines - Impeach was the word of the year, with the former ombudsman and the Chief Justice being the target of political proceedings, both being identified with the past Arroyo administration.

President Aquino could not be swayed from his straight path, opting to fulfill his campaign promise of going after those who wasted the country’s resources and swelled the ranks of the poor. (Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.)

Blood was spilled too in 2011. former Armed Forces chief Angelo Reyes, who had served in various capacities in the Cabinet of the previous administration, committed suicide before his parents’ graves after being given a dressing down by a former underling at a Senate inquiry on corruption in the military. A lawyer of a state-run bank also took his own life, under pressure to expose supposed backroom deals.

Filipino drug mules were executed in China, and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was arrested on charges of electoral sabotage, but not before trying to leave the country for treatment of a recurring spine injury.

Not one but two major storms hit the country, “Pedring” in the usual monsoon month of September that brought a surge of waves along Roxas Boulevard, and the more destructive “Sendong” entering through the southern backdoor in December to draw the curtains on another troubling year, one that Filipinos can only be glad is over.

The top stories of the past 12 months:

The scene looked somewhat familiar, but Arroyo the ex-president turned congresswoman was arrested on Nov. 18 after the Pasay City regional trial court found probable cause to charge her and several others with poll fraud. Just three days earlier she had been stopped at the airport when she was to board a plane for Hong Kong to seek medical treatment for her back, for which she had undergone three surgeries. She is now under hospital arrest at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, where her predecessor Joseph Estrada had also been detained about a decade ago on charges of plunder. She spent the holidays at VMMC after her request for furlough was denied.

Tropical storm Sendong wreaked havoc on Northern Mindanao and Central Visayas on the weekend before Christmas, the death toll reaching more than a thousand and another thousand still missing, the aftermath of which has been described as a humanitarian disaster: potable water running out after whole neighborhoods were wiped out by flashfloods, bodies piling up in mortuaries and a shortage of coffins. It was a tragedy hardly anyone expected, putting a damper to the holidays, but international aid started to pour in and civic and other groups began to mobilize to bring help to the victims, mostly in the southern cities of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Dumaguete.

In what was probably the year’s first big story, retired General Reyes turned a gun on himself at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina on the morning of Feb. 8, his blood splattering on the tombstone of his mother. Before his death Reyes was accused of collecting P50 million in sendoff money by a former AFP budget officer. When he tried to defend himself at the Senate inquiry, he was cut short by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, former leader of the Magdalo group who had accused Reyes of corruption during the Oakwood mutiny in 2003, which treatment from a fellow PMAer the late general said he “did not expect.” He was 65.

The impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona in December by the House of Representatives was criticized for its seeming haste, gathering signatures of 188 lawmakers or twice the required number to send the complaint to the Senate for trial. Corona was impeached for alleged betrayal of public trust, violation of the Constitution, and graft and corruption, stemming for the most part from his close association with the former president Arroyo. The Palace has pointed to Corona, possibly GMA’s crowning glory, as a stumbling block to the administration’s program of reform, but those who sided with the judiciary detected a brewing demagogue. The Senate will be arbiter to avert a constitutional crisis when trial begins in January.

The year might almost be book ended by the execution of Filipino drug mules in China – three in March, and the last in December. A trip by Vice President Jejomar Binay to Beijing in February was able to delay the execution of Elizabeth Batain, Ramon Credo and Sally Ordinario-Villanueva by a month, but in December the fourth mule whose family requested privacy to remain unnamed was granted no such deferment as Binay’s request for a last minute appeal to Beijing was denied. China reiterated that the decision of its most supreme court was final. A total of 208 Filipinos are involved in drug-related cases in China, including Hong Kong and Macau, and 70 of them have been sentenced to death with two-year reprieve, according to Department of Foreign Affairs records.

Troubled overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in various parts of the globe were like a recurring nightmare as governments fell in the Middle East and North Africa, an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, and an earthquake hit New Zealand in February where more than a dozen Filipinos died in a collapsed building in Christchurch. President Aquino donated $1 million for the reconstruction of the local city hall in Ishinomaki City, Japan, that was destroyed by the disaster resembling an apocalypse. Last March Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario went to Libya to pursue repatriation operations and brought 400 OFWs to safety. Now operations are underway to get compatriots out of strife-torn Syria.

The meeting in Tokyo last August between Aquino and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Al Haj Murad drew criticism due to the manner it was conducted and the lobbying of the MILF for a Bangsamoro substate. Government negotiators, however, assured the public that there would be no repeat of the botched signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain in 2008 that led to a rampage by rogue members of the front. The conflict between government and the MILF was highlighted in October when 19 soldiers were killed in an encounter while going after a wanted MILF commander in a so-called area of temporary stay.

Then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez resigned on April 29, ten days before her impeachment trial at the Senate. In March more than 200 members of the House voted to impeach her based on separate complaints by party-list members, for her alleged failure to act on corruption and human rights violation cases of Arroyo. During his second State of the Nation Address in July, Aquino announced the new ombudsman would be recently retired Supreme Court associate justice Conchita Carpio-Morales.

The balance of power in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) was intermittently in the news throughout the year, from two Chinese navy gunboats ‘harassing’ a Department of Energy research vessel in the vicinity of Recto Bank (Reed Bank) in the Spratlys early in the year, to an incident in May where Chinese jet fighters buzzed two Philippine air force planes on a test routine patrol. Months later a Philippine Navy gunboat rammed one of the Chinese fishing vessels in the area.    

Those keeping close tabs on the Aquino administration are noting how two issues will pan out: the Marcos burial and agrarian reform in Hacienda Luisita. But the President has put his foot down on any hero’s burial for the late dictator under his watch, this after asking his vice president to resolve the macabre dilemma. Meanwhile the Supreme Court has voted unanimously to partition the Cojuangco-owned Luisita in Tarlac to farmer beneficiaries, after a long legal tussle including a stock share option for the farmers.

Now you see him now you don’t, Sen. Panfilo Lacson surfaced early in the year after months in hiding due to the Dacer-Corbito murder case after his arrest warrant was canceled, and he resumed his duties at the Senate not quite the oppositionist he used to be. Yet it was like he never left. – With CJ Pagulong, STAR research