If there is a book Filipino journalists must read, it is Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow. It is a good tool to understand our politics of today, suffused as it is, with geopolitical implications. The key point is to keep firmly in mind the US-Chinese world power rivalry. Because of this rivalry, the US has no patience with foreign policies that are not in keeping with their idea of American hegemony in the region.
In his book Kinzer narrates that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not an isolated episode. He traces a history of 110 years during which Americans overthrew 14 governments that displeased them for various ideological, political and economic reasons. Among the first of these countries that shaped US policy on overthrow is the Philippines. Others are Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Honduras, South Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, and Panama.
Often, he says, US officials simply don’t comprehend why developing nations want to control their own natural resources. “With each overthrow, the US government repeatedly pursued short-term gains, never contemplating the tragic consequences that might develop decades later.”
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I suspect the same US policy is behind the vilification of President GMA. To them she is an unreliable ally. That decision was made as far back as the 2004 elections. The overt story of this campaign of vilification is “she cheated in the elections and a tape was produced to support the allegation.” All criticisms, in one form or another, spring from that accusation which gave it a moral stamp.
The campaign came in stages which included props like a UN rapporteur, church groups from abroad and shrill statements from human rights organizations. Never mind if that tape is itself illegal and unacceptable evidence. Never mind if the Supreme Court handed a decision that any protest and re-counting of votes are moot if the protestant, FPJ, is dead. Never mind if Filipinos refused to mass in protest even when Cory and the bishops were calling as they did in two EDSAs.
That is not the point. The point is to make Filipinos hate its own government and make it ineffective.
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Its covert reason is another. Because she has a penchant for acting and deciding independently (i.e. her flirtations with China is one, another is her recall of the Philippine team from Iraq for the sake of truck driver Angelo de la Cruz) therefore she cannot be “fully” trusted. To isolate her government from Filipinos — the record just keeps playing on — she cannot do right. There are enough home-grown resources to drive the wedge — media, poll surveys, sections of the Church and business groups are only some of them. (Remember that pathetic protest in Ayala Avenue or the Peninsula siege or even finally the aggrieved media members holding up their tied hands).
Less obvious is the strategy to ensure that no Charter change ever takes place before 2010 until a new, more pliant president can be installed. If we follow the logic of American interventions, the next president will owe his victory to them for stopping Charter change at whatever cost.
I can imagine the exasperation of political operators assigned to this task. She has not resigned nor has she been ousted. She is successfully being estranged from her people without their even knowing why.
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Robert Sherrill who reviewed the book says American agents engage in “complex, well-financed campaigns to bring down governments.” But it is not often obvious. The American belief that “they are the most righteous people in the world and that they are obliged to force their version of righteousness on backward nations — especially if they have a bountiful supply of minerals that our corporations want (i.e., oil in Iran, copper in Chile)” can be distracting. Not surprisingly there has to be a religious or moral component in regime changes especially in a mainly Catholic country like the Philippines.
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Take the case of the Iranian leader, Mossadegh. In Overthrow, Kinzer narrates the British asked Secretary of State Dulles who in turn asked his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles to conduct a vilification campaign against him. “What ensued was a truly masterful piece of skulduggery” Kinzer writes.
“First came a propaganda campaign to convince the West Mossadegh was a communist, which in the US of the 1950s put him on the level of a child molester. Actually, Mossadegh hated communists, but most of our press swallowed the lie. Time Magazine had previously called Mossadegh “the Iranian George Washington” and “the most world-renowned man his ancient race had produced for centuries.” Now it called him “one of the worst calamities to the anti-communist world since the Red conquest of China.”
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I daresay that GMA’s vilification is no different from Mossadegh’s. Take the MOA-AD controversy. Attacks on the MOA-AD have been so skillfully orchestrated to stop not only Charter change, these reinforce the tarring of GMA’s government as incompetent and promote opposition candidates for the presidency in the 2010 elections.
The National Union of People’s Lawyers are being “skilfully” used to whip up disgust with the controversial memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) a President GMA’s bid to extend her term beyond 2010. The lawyers’ group blames Arroyo for the deaths and displacement of civilians in Mindanao.
And the final blow: NUPL calls on senators who have endorsed moves to amend the Constitution to make way for a shift to a federal government to withdraw their support.
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Malacañang is fighting back but it has to be more forceful and as skillful. “In the wake of the controversy, Ms Arroyo has unveiled a “new paradigm of peace” shifting the focus of the peace process from talks with armed groups to “authentic dialogues with concerned communities.” Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in a press statement.
If I remember right, the Aquino government worked out its peace agreement with the MNLF through an executive order without much ado.
But that does not stop Senate President Protempore “Jinggoy” Estrada and Senator Mar Roxas for stoking the fire against an agreement that never was. (Roxas has the edge for American support in 2010.) No matter how many times it is said no agreement has been signed. You had better believe in it like Mossadegh was a communist.