Stunt

Stuntsmanship overwhelming statesmanship. That is the problem of our politics.

In the economic sphere, the mood is grim. We have come through the last three months of severe financial turbulence in world markets without losing much poise. Our strong fiscal position enabled us to show more resiliency than most other economies.

Growth will almost certainly come at a slower pace; but we are not about to slide into a recession like Japan or Singapore or South Korea. The peso has come under pressure but it has not stopped fighting back.

There is, in every sector, a resolute determination to overcome the externally-induced adversity. Our entrepreneurs are picking through the debris of a global financial crisis, intent on seeking out opportunities and advantages. On the political stage, however, there appears to be a parallel universe. The clowns are out to play. Yesterday’s people are trying to replay yesterday’s games.

On that stage, it seems, nothing is more important that personal ambition and partisan warfare. There are old hatchets to be unburied. There are old issues to be recycled and old names desperately wanting to be reissued in the polls that now seem to be still and eternity away.

There is a different drummer to which some of our politicians march. It is a drum roll that, in a tribute to the common sense of our people, does not resonate in the streets, does not impress ordinary citizens and does not add to the distress of difficult times.

Nothing exemplifies the stuntsmanship that some of our political players prefer than that odd, recycled impeachment complaint filed at the House of Representatives two weeks ago. It is due to be tackled — and mercifully disposed of — when sessions resume in a few days.

The filing of the complaint itself had all the elements of a highly contrived comedy.

Fearful that rivals thirsting for the same publicity windfall might jump the gun on them and overtake them in filing an alternative complaint, the motley gang behind this latest stunt held vigil at the Batasan. The morning they filed their voluminous complaint, there was supposed to be a large crowd of supporters cheering them on. There were none.

The TV clips of the filing show the proponents walking deliberately in slow motion, as if they were in some religious procession or in a trance, bringing copies of the complaint to the House secretary-general. It was like watching an old film through an underpowered projector.

A more sympathetic reading of that episode might say the complainants were attempting to underscore the solemnity of the undertaking. It is more likely, however, that they were simply trying to stretch their proverbial 15 minutes of fame.

Given the remarkably tepid response of other anti-administration groups to the recycled complaint, 15 minutes of fame is just about what the publicity-hungry complainants are likely to get from this caper. These other groups have a better sense of the mood in the streets and a better appreciation of the possible public opinion backlash to this impeachment folly. They have kept their distance from the motley crowd of impeachment complainants.

But the impeachment complaint filed, although it might be a total nuisance, is not about to evaporate quickly. That complaint was endorsed by the leftist party-list legislators, the people who sit there uselessly in the backbench just waiting to throw a monkey wrench in the nation’s affairs.

The vast majority of our political leaders are not about to take this stunt sitting down.

The Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) issued a strong statement condemning the new impeachment filing. The local government leaders are convinced that the new impeachment complaint can only have detrimental effects on our people, considering that in this period of great economic challenge the most urgent task at hand is for the nation to pull together and do what needs to be done to spare our people this crisis’ worst effects.

The ULAP position is echoed by the League of Vice Governors, the League of Municipalities, the Provincial Board Members League and even by the Sangguniang Kabataan. Every association of elected local officials now stands united to condemn this act of stuntsmanship in a moment of serious difficulty for our people.

There is no possibility the new impeachment complaint will attract any more support beyond the small circle of marginal publicity-seekers who now endorse it. Most of us understand that there are far more important and far more productive things we could do with our time and energy.

There has been a consistent and sharply declining base of support for what has become an empty annual ritual of filing impeachment complaints against the President of the Republic for any reason publicity-seekers might fancy. The first complaint was resoundingly defeated in a House vote, the second one was entirely laughable and this last one is simply pathetic.

Which is not to say there is nothing to learn from this attempt to distract us from the more important, more positive things that ought to concern us.

This vain attempt to resurrect a doomed political project draws a clear line of division between the constructive and the simply destructive forces on the political terrain. It clearly separates those who seek, day in and day out, to slowly build a better future for our people and those who remain trapped in the destructive politics that brought us only grief.

That line of separation will be important in the democratic contest that looms in the horizon.