So many cries of ‘Wolf!’ - CHASING THE WIND by Felipe B. Miranda

Imagine a society where a president had just been deposed by means which its Constitution does not quite explicitly provide for, means which might have been endorsed by a slim majority and even legitimized by the Supreme Court but which a good number of people also continues to repudiate. Imagine the same society beset by serious economic difficulties, dramatic governance issues of systemic graft and corruption and politically divisive issues relating to the trial of its fallen president. Add unnerving public safety concerns like a persistently high level of criminality and an apparent breakdown in this society’s effective enforcement of law and order.

Note furthermore a dangerous development which saw thousands of ordinary people storming Malacañang and violently expressing their collective frustration with the inequities of their society and the perceived fecklessness and insincerity of their authorities.

Then add a few more stress factors such as the tendency of media for hyperbolic reporting and the people’s already overly-developed sense of cynicism.

In such a society, responsible authorities will be most careful in making statements or pursuing policies which could upset the delicate sense of public order, driving enough of the citizenry into either dangerous panic reactions or, alternatively, irresponsible nonchalance regarding concerns seriously in need of their urgent action.

Should there be an objective danger of political destabilization, conscientious authorities would work quietly to manage the situation, activating whatever needs to be done to neutralize the forces endangering national stability, and keeping the citizenry from being overwhelmed by them. The public needs to be informed of its peril only if the authorities initially lacked needed resources and the public somehow must be mobilized to help effectively deal with it. Or, having managed the threat effectively, the authorities could inform the nation after the crisis had passed and then acknowledge the citizenry’s predictable appreciation for what they had done.

An administration quietly, successfully dealing with national security threats invariably gains the citizenry’s trust and respect. Public confidence in this kind of administration builds up and enables it to be even more effective in addressing critical concerns of governance beyond those of basic political stabilization. Such an administration would not have to announce repetitively that it is on top of a situation, that it is in full control of the powers and the resources of governance. A fact does not have to be stridently, repeatedly trumpeted for it to be acknowledged and properly appreciated.

On the other hand, if there is currently no real threat to the country’s political stability from those who oppose the present administration, why would its authorities conjure scenarios of potential and even imminent coups, political assassinations, mass violence and other staples of political destabilization? Why would an administration daily confront its already apprehensive citizenry with this bewildering and even more alarming series of disorienting threats to the nation?

Responsible citizens should not be faulted for raising these questions and expecting quick and credible answers from their authorities. Should the authorities fail or choose not to respond to these proper concerns of the people, the latter could reasonably suspect that these recent cries of wolf are designed to help endow the authorities with powers and resources that are constitutionally permissible only when the nation’s survival is indubitably and immediately threatened.

One must hope that this suspicion is wrong in the case of the Arroyo administration. Otherwise, Filipinos must deal with a most alarming possibility. Some key administration people could have made a fateful assessment that this nation given its current crises is ungovernable with the normal powers and resources provided by the Constitution. Martial rule, to such people, would be a tempting proposition and they would sing their piper’s tune.

Has the Arroyo administration heard this tune? And yielded to it?