Disruptions

"These are interesting times, indeed."

Just as Christmas is a few days away, and the bells of Balangiga have arrived and will soon toll in historic Samar as it presages Simbang Gabi throughout the nation, several disruptions are happening, not only in the country, but around the world.

In Britain, the Brexit debate which should have gone to a vote yesterday in parliament was tactically withdrawn by Theresa May, as it faced defeat.  It puts the Conservative government in a bind.

Having spent months and months of crossing the English Channel to the various capitals of Europe and to Brussels to forge a “smooth” disengagement from the EU, May now finds her efforts going, going, and unless she and the Tories still behind her can help it, gone.

Brussels has staunchly declared that it will not renegotiate a new deal, but Labor and many in the British Parliament are adamant in questioning the terms of the exit deal.

Brexit was a disruption that shook Europe and the world when it narrowly won  in a referendum on June 2016.  Two and a half years after, the terms of disengaging the British economy from the European Union are facing rejection by her peers.

If Theresa May’s delaying tactic does not work in her favor, the disruption that Brexit was would be discombobulating for her, her government, the British pound and the economy.

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Across the Channel, Emmanuel Macron, just a year and a half ago the acclaimed poster boy of European strength as he triumphed from left field in a historic French election, finds his economic reforms disrupted by a leaderless cri de coeur from disenchanted people wearing Gilets Jaune (yellow vests).

The violent protests in the French capital and elsewhere against increased fuel taxes has forced Macron to retreat from his former hardline stance in favor of reforming the economy of a country that has been used to the perks of a quasi-socialist populism.

Whether the Gilets Jaune movement could discombobulate the French president who styles himself as a modern-day Napoleon but has suffered an awesome drop in popularity within a year of his political ascendancy remains to be seen.  

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Across the Atlantic, the irascible Donald Trump is facing more and more challenges to his leadership.

His stance vis-à-vis the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince who is clearly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey has caused rebellion within the Republican Party itself. With his thin victory in the Senate in the last elections, and the Democratic Party’s reclaim of the House of Representatives, the crisis bodes ill for his stay in power.

More seriously, the Russian connection during his quest for the White House which has implicated more than a dozen of his closest aides and tacticians is closing in, as Robert Mueller peels off one confession after another, one revelation after another.

It has become so bad for Trump, despite his much-touted early successes on turning around the American economy, that he has had a difficult time looking for a replacement for the White House Chief of Staff. 

No president has experienced the embarrassment of offering such a high and sensitive position to many yet be politely refused.  It is a clear sign that the American president is increasingly getting isolated.

Just yesterday, 44 former senators of the Union wrote a letter to the Washington Post warning about the crisis of the time, and appealed to present senators to always stand for the Constitution and for country, as if expecting an impeachment trial would soon reach the Senate. 

Disruptive from the start, which could have been a good thing for a lethargic American economy, Trump is finding himself politically discombobulated instead.

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And across the Pacific Ocean, here at home, approval of the budget is being disrupted by the discovery of not interstices, but slabs and slabs of pork hidden in “favored” districts of the lower House. Not a few millions here and there, but billions in a few districts.

The perennial nemesis of pork, Senator Panfilo Lacson, is gung-ho about uncovering the sleight-of-hand that some congressmen were able to insert into the general appropriations bill that the President wants the Senate to pass, pronto.  Else we are saddled by a reenacted budget that could create mayhem to the government’s spending priorities for 2019.

But Lacson is not one who would relent from disruption, because this has been his career-long crusade, and in a government that vows to stop corruption, his disruption ought to be for good.

But it could also be politically discombobulating. Not that Lacson would mind that at all.

* * *

Disruption is good, if through it,  change for the better happens.  But when it discombobulates May, or Macron, or Trump, or our Congress, it can devastate political careers.  

How the disruptors and the disrupted comport themselves amid these challenges will determine whether they would fall, or wither,  or rise to greater heights.

Interesting times, these.