Who gains from the Jose Pidal issue?

Two months after Senator Panfilo Lacson charged the presidential spouse with using an alias – Jose Pidal – and engaging in money laundering, one is inclined to ask whether anyone has gained from the political crossfire that attended the senator’s expose. Given the explosive nature of Senator Lacson’s allegations, media predictably feasted on the Jose Pidal issue and the whole nation has been induced to participate in gorging off it.

Television carried the Senate hearings on the Pidal issue live. Radio maximized public awareness of the protagonists’ manifestations before the Senate and beyond. All newspapers bannered Pidal—related charges and countercharges. TV hosts and their voluble guests, radio announcers, newspaper editors and columnists – all being influential opinion makers with some trotting their enviable infallibility – dissected the essential Pidal for the national audience.

On account of all these wondrous allegations, expositions, interpellations, insinuations, rejoinders and their predictable retinue of increasingly provocative material, the nation may now know more about Jose Pidal — real or imaginary character that he is – than the pensive national hero Jose Rizal. Virtually all (94 percent) of those surveyed by Pulse Asia in September 2003 had already heard or read something about the Pidal issue before their interviews. (The survey’s 1200 respondents had been randomly selected and comprised a nationally representative sample of Filipinos 18 years old and above.)

After media’s blanket bombing, the survey respondents present an interesting study in their perceptions and sentiments relating to the Pidal controversy and its lead protagonists. Nationwide, close to half (47 percent) believe Senator Lacson to be a more credible figure than First Gentleman Miguel "Mike" Arroyo, with significantly fewer (33 percent) thinking otherwise. The rest of those interviewed (11 percent) are unable/unwilling to decide regarding the two personalities’ relative credibility.

A plurality (43 percent) believes the allegations against the First Gentleman are inspired by the electoral season and thus may be regarded as mostly political harassment. Metro Manilans are least persuaded by this idea, with only 32 percent of them entertaining it. Nationwide, more than a third (33 percent) holds a different view, believing that beyond personal revenge or politicking, accusers of the First Gentleman have actually found strong evidence of corruption. This perception is proportionately stronger in Metro Manila (49 percent) and among members of the better-off class ABC (42 percent). A fifth of those surveyed (21 percent) avers the reason must be personal revenge by those accusers who had been harassed by the First Gentleman and his allies.

As to what might be best to do regarding the allegations against the First Gentleman, a majority (55 percent) of those surveyed suggests that the Senate investigate these charges; a minority (39 percent) would rather have the courts hear and resolve them and an obviously cynical few (6 percent) say that since nothing will come out of this controversy anyway, nothing ought to be done at all. Among those recommending a senate investigation, bigger majorities obtain in Mindanao (76 percent) and among the poorest respondents from class E (61 percent).

Further analysis of the survey data on the Pidal controversy shows that the First Gentleman had not fared well in the public eye. Among 11 personalities tested for public trust in this survey, the respondents trust him least (15 percent) and distrust him most (45 percent). (In comparison, while Lacson does not come out as a sterling personality himself, he is nevertheless trusted by 28 percent and distrusted by 40 percent.) Among those finding the Senator more credible than him on this issue, Arroyo’s already low trust level reduces further to 10 percent and public distrust for him rises to 55 percent, a majority of this important sub-group.

The Pidal damage is not confined to the first Gentleman but clearly extends to President Arroyo no less. Among the more numerous respondents (47 percent) who find Lacson more credible than Mike Arroyo (33 percent), the president’s overall approval level drops from a 41 percent to 37 percent; her overall trust rating — the lowest in her career as chief executive so far — erodes further from 36 percent to 31 percent. Even her presidential voter preference might have been affected as it dropped from 21 percent in Pulse Asia’s August 2003 Ulat ng Bayan survey to the current September 2003 survey’s 14 percent.

Remarkably, even as the Pidal issue appears to have hurt the Arroyo administration, the public has not endowed Senator Lacson with any capital for having raised it. Public approval for him as a senator dropped much from 51 percent to 34 percent; trust for him degraded from 42 percent to 28 percent between August and September in the same Pulse Asia surveys. His presidential voter preference did not take off but remained basically the same, with a very marginal decrease from 11 percent to 9 percent for the same period.

If the Arroyo’s – wife and husband – are demonstrably hurt by the Pidal controversy and if Lacson also suffers and makes no capital from it, is there any party at all that gains from having this dramatic issue embroil the entire country?

Paradoxically, the nation itself might have gained. With every shocking revelation of heinous behavior by their leaders, Filipinos learn to be properly skeptical about the political leadership and its political theatre. In most instances, the public already suspects moro-moro plays and teapot-bounded, tempestuous performances by feckless authorities. Popular skepticism is definitely growing fast and will eventually cross a critical threshold. Then, like other nations that have walked this dolorous path earlier, Filipinos will make their most proper demand – the reformatting of an iniquitous society and the termination of its atavistic governance.