Can't let go

If Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo keeps running true to form, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, barring any poll fraud, is assured of the presidency.

All that Noynoy has to add to his anti-corruption slogan is that he will not try to hold on to power, that there will be no messy transition under his watch, that he, like his mother in her final months in office, will be the anti-thesis of the incumbent president, relinquishing power with grace and dignity.

The twilight of the Arroyo presidency has to be one of the messiest transition periods in our history. After nine years of weakening democratic institutions, the President is determined to weaken them some more. After Ferdinand Marcos, she is the best argument against keeping anyone in power too long in this country. Those who overstay start believing that power is their birthright. And having been in power too long, and co-opted and corrupted too many people, they have the same sickening effect on society as inbreeding among royal families and the very rich.

If GMA cannot extend her term, her official acts in her final months display a desire to continue governing by proxy, undermining the authority of her successor.

Her determination to appoint the next chief justice, even when her successor would already be known by the time the vacancy is created, is just the most brazen of those acts. In this she enjoys the cooperation of what will forever be known as the Arroyo Supreme Court.

Having received the green light from the nation’s highest court to pick its next chief, the President has also embarked on what those affected are now describing as the pre-election “massacre.”

Members of bodies such as the National Historical Institute, the National Museum and the Dangerous Drugs Board are being replaced en masse, without the courtesy of being formally informed of their ouster, probably because the presidential orders – if anything is being put in writing – are being antedated before March 10, the start of the constitutional ban on midnight appointments.

Even the diplomatic service has not been spared. As of yesterday, the Department of Foreign Affairs had not yet received the papers formally designating taipan Al Yuchengco as the country’s new ambassador to Germany. He replaces Delia Albert, who is supposed to retire in June, and who found out that she had been replaced only when she asked the President about it last week.

Section 15, Article 7 of the Constitution bars the president from making appointments “two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term… except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety.” The ban should be enforced particularly in the case of a sitting president who is seeking another elective post.

The Arroyo Supreme Court has of course “interpreted” this provision to mean that the ban excludes the post of chief justice. But that interpretation does not extend to the diplomatic service, or to seats in government boards or bodies when there aren’t even vacancies to be filled, and when any vacancy created by presidential whim will not prejudice public service or endanger public safety.

The Arroyo Supreme Court can, of course, be relied upon by GMA, through yet another creative interpretation of the Constitution, to uphold her midnight appointments, in case the latest ones are elevated to the high tribunal.

In the case of Albert, who did not resign from her Berlin posting, the unofficial reason leaked to the press for her replacement was that a new ambassador is needed for the dispute over NAIA-3, which builder Fraport AG of Germany has taken to an international arbitration court in Singapore. I doubt if the way Albert is being yanked out would boost German confidence in the Philippines, which has been severely eroded by the flap over NAIA-3.

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When GMA is not creating vacancies on a whim and filling the posts with friends and supporters, she is moving to ensure that she can create a bloc in the House of Representatives that can blackmail her successor with the constant threat of impeachment.

This is why several of her Cabinet members and relatives are running for House seats, and why even her eldest son is seeking to re-enter Congress through the backdoor, as a party-list representative of security guards.

Failing to muster the required seats for impeachment, the President is said to be negotiating Plan B: to head a House committee where she can put the squeeze on certain individuals and business interests working against her in this election season.

The brazen abuse of the party-list system, with political parties and religious groups following the lead of the President herself, is leading to calls for a boycott of the party-list voting. It’s not going to work – some groups will manage to squeak through with their nominees – and you can’t shame the shameless.

But the Liberal Party can use the brazenness to boost the chances of its standard-bearer. Last year, public disgust over lavish dinners and other excesses of the presidency led to a massive outpouring of grief over the death of Corazon Aquino. That disgust has kept her only son Noynoy at the top of all surveys on presidential bets.

According to the grapevine, GMA can live with any winner in the presidential race except Noynoy Aquino. That should be a great endorsement for Noynoy.

Whoever wins will have to undo the damage left behind in the final months of the Arroyo administration. Unsavory precedents are being set. A sure sign of a weak democracy is the inability of its top official to let go of power.

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READY AND WILLING: Vice President Noli de Castro wrote to clarify a point I raised in my March 22 column on the vice presidential race, that he did not want to take over the presidency when it was offered to him by the “Hyatt 10” in 2005.

His comment: “To set the record straight, I never said that I did not want to take over the presidency. I was very clear and careful on my pronouncements during that time. I was ready to assume the presidency provided my assumption into office was consistent with the dictates of the Constitution. As an elected public official, I deemed it my duty to defend and uphold the Constitution. I was ready and willing to fulfill my constitutional duty to be President. However, at that time there was clearly no vacancy in the Presidency despite the outcry of certain sectors for the President to resign. I hope I have sufficiently clarified the matter.”