Betrayal of EDSA Promises
By Amie Dural

WILL THE Filipino people ever see in their lifetime the just resolution of the plunder case against ousted President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, a.k.a. Jose Velarde?

This is the question often asked in the series of forum in various schools, churches and communities that I have attended and helped organize through the Plunder Watch network.

With thousands of fellow youth and practically all sectors in society, I remember very clearly that on January 20, 2001, while Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was taking her oath as new president at the EDSA Shrine, the challenge to purse justice and meaningful changes were repeatedly voiced out by leaders of the historic mobilization spearheaded by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) and the broad Estrada Resign Movement (ERM) at Mendiola.

A year after People Power 2, why do we feel betrayed by President Arroyo?

To date, we are left wondering over the capacity of the Arroyo administration to pursue justice and truth in the case of the Estrada plunder.

In our view, the People Power administration has never really exercised its political will to speed up the prosecution of Estrada and the confiscation of the ill-gotten wealth of his families and co-horts. Earlier, the Arroyo administration has even offered to allow Estrada to go on exile and escape his criminal accountabilities. Worse, when the May 1 pro-Estrada rally was staged near Malacañang, the President's soft and compromising stance further weakened the government's resolve to push for the just punishment of Estrada.

Estrada and his lawyers continue to waylay the judicial system and its legal processes. Their strategy is to delay as long as possible the court proceedings on perjury and plunder and other cases of Estrada's crimes until at least 2004, the year of the next presidential elections. They have focused their efforts on diversionary tactics such as the forms of Estrada's custody: imprisonment in Laguna or Camp Crame, or house arrest or hospital arrest; and on the nature of the case: separate cases or one consolidated case.

We witness Arroyo's betrayal of the goals of People Power 2 against the evils of cronyism and corruption through her dealings with and special favors for the Estradas and known Estrada cronies and allies like Danding Cojuangco and El Shaddai's Mike Velarde. The recent dismissal of corruption charges against Velarde, Estrada, Zamora et al is a compromise deal that will favor Arroyo's ambition to run in the 2004 elections and gain the votes of El Shaddai followers.

Moreover, we feel betrayed because contrary to Arroyo's "healing process", there was never genuine healing for the victims of Estrada's all-out war as large-scale military operations in Basilan, Southern Tagalog and other regions continue to terrorize the civilian population. The poor peasants and national minorities suffer military atrocities and human rights abuses as in the case of Mangyan and Dumagat families who were displaced by intense militarization in the countrysides. "All-out peace" remains to be an illusion especially now that Arroyo's all-out support to the US "war against terrorism" would further intensify militarization rather than address the pressing economic problems of the people.

More than ever, direct US military intervention has been aggressively promoted by Arroyo through the entry of US military advisers and 660 US soldiers set to participate in the US-RP "war games" or joint training-exercises in Mindanao. According to Malacañang, these foreign troops are here to rescue the Abu Sayyaf hostages and will stay for 6-12 months or indefinitely, depending on the situation. But the long record of abuses of US military troops, including "accidental shots" that resulted to death of civilians during "war games," is reason enough for people who value human life and national sovereignty to demand freedom from military intervention and all forms of US domination. We must be reminded why we must junk the US-RP Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) just as the people fought hard to junk the US-RP Military Bases
Agreement in 1992.

More importantly, the poor workers and underpaid middle-class professionals are betrayed as the new government continues to turn deaf to their demands for higher wages and salaries while it sympathized with the capitalist giants who claimed they could not afford a P125 across the board wage increase in the face of economic crisis. The poor landless peasants are betrayed as the government continued to push further agricultural liberalization instead of implementing genuine land reform and protecting local agriculture from foreign monopolies and big landlords.

Preident. Arroyo's approval of a national budget for 2002 that highly favors foreign debt servicing and military expenditures while the masses are in dire need of housing and affordable services is totally immoral. Likewise, her refusal to grant the demands for P125 across the board wage hike and P3000 salary increase for poor workers and employees is totally unjust.

In the face of all these betrayal, we are again challenged to pledge our continuing commitment to the people's movement until we are totally liberated from the clutches of big plunderers, greedy landlords, monopoly capitalists and abusive public officials who totally disregard, neglect and violate the basic rights and long-running demands of the Filipino people.

Hail the People's Victory of EDSA!
Onward with the struggle for justice and meaningful change!

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Amie Dural Works for the Promotion for Church People's Response and Plunder Watch Network.

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