EDITORIAL - Ramos losing credibility

When former president Fidel Ramos described the decision of President Arroyo to run for a congressional seat in Pampanga as an act that “diminishes the stature of the presidency,” he can only be credible if he does not stop at that.

Unfortunately, he did. He did not go on to say other things that could have proven he was talking objectively and not selectively. For example, his criticism of Arroyo would have been more credible if he, at the same time, also criticized former president Joseph Estrada.

Estrada, despite a constitutional ban against any reelection, and after having been ousted from power, then tried and convicted for plunder, is seeking a return to the presidency. If this is not an act that “diminishes the stature of the presidency,” we don't know what is.

And yet, Ramos conveniently passed over this very glaring sticking point in the 2010 edition of presidential elections, preferring to jump on board the more popular bandwagon of Arroyo-bashing.

Ramos seems to conveniently forget that his “heroic” role in Edsa 1986 did not completely erase his culpability as martial law enforcer, being the vice chief of staff and head of the then Philippine Constabulary in the dictatorship Edsa dismantled.

Ramos also cannot conveniently remember that Edsa actually started as an attempted coup, an unconstitutional grab for power, before it got overtaken by events and succeeded only because of the intervention of civilians.

The presidency is not a level unto itself that it can be diminished in the manner that Ramos seems to understand the words presidency and diminish. What separates the presidency from the other positions of public office is merely the scope of its authority.

But the public service expected of it, or any other public office, is the same. It does not matter if an official serves a single person or an entire nation. If he serves with honesty and dedication, it is good. If not, it is bad.

It is therefore grossly wrong for Ramos or anybody else to say Arroyo is diminishing the stature of the presidency by running for Congress at the end of her term and then to say nothing about a convicted plunderer seeking the presidency again, in violation of the Constitution.