“The efforts of one side like the military establishing a military junta or any other civil society group demanding the resignation of PBBM are not enough”
OVER the past several weeks there have been efforts by some quarters to force PBBM out of office either by extra judicial or Constitutional means like resignation.
This appears to take advantage of the ongoing flood control corruption scandal engulfing PBBM’s government.
So far, however, there are no takers and rightly so. After all, removing a head of state before his legal term expires is complicated and a difficult process.
In fact, if we look at the two experiences that we had in forcing presidents out of office, the current effort is weak and lacks many of the elements that successfully drove two presidents out of office.
For instance, the group demanding the resignation of PBBM so that VP Sara Duterte can take over as president is doomed to fail.
As former Secretary Solita Monsod quipped, it is like dousing the fire with gasoline to make it bigger.
Still another group like the Bayan of Teddy Casino who suggested that a civilian transitional group headed by the Senate President can take over until an election can be held for a permanent president will not happen either. It is very much like a military junta which the public abhors and will not support.
All these efforts do not fit the recent models that have taken place in our recent political history. For one, in the two instances wherein two presidents had to leave office before their legal terms officially ended had the military and civil society joining forces to succeed.
In 1986, the generally accepted winner in the snap national elections, Corazon C. Aquino, was proclaimed the winner and inaugurated as the legal President.
In the case of former President Joseph Estrada, he was considered resigned by the Supreme Court and Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was sworn into office as President by the Chief Justice.
Regardless of how some quarters interpret these two changes in leadership, a legal process was at least followed which were based on the provisions of the existing Constitutions at that time.
In both instances, the civil society and the military agreed to join forces even if they had very different political ideologies for the common goal of removing the sitting president.
If the public will recall, in 1986, it was the military establishment that first broke away from the government.
The effort however was not enough for the sitting president to leave office but when the late Cardinal Sin made that broadcast to the Filipino people to support the soldiers barricaded in Camps Crame and Aguinaldo, that was the trigger mechanism that ended the Marcos Sr. government in just four days.
In the case of President Joseph Estrada, it was civil society that started the effort but could not bring the government down even with all the demonstrations.
But when the military leadership threw their support behind the civilian effort, it also did not take long for President Estrada’s government to vacate the Palace, paving the way for VP Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to assume as President.
It is very clear that in our experience, the efforts of one side like the military establishing a military junta or any other civil society group demanding the resignation of PBBM are not enough.
The military and civil society must again find a common goal for both to again coalesce.
That trigger for this to happen could be some kind of incontrovertible evidence that PBBM is personally involved in the ongoing flood control corruption scandal.
But since no such evidence has been presented so far, then there is no reason for the two groups to be joining forces.
Besides we should just stick to the traditional way of changing political leaders and that is thru elections.
The two trillion peso marches which showed the passion and outrage of the citizenry should be enough to trigger a change for our leaders to stop the unbridled corruption and plunder of government funds.
The other effort by some lawmakers to pass the Anti-dynasty law should also be pursued, with a law lessening the number of members of the House Representatives instead of increasing the number to lessen corruption.
This includes Party-List representatives because there are also too many of them.
