The entire Arroyo issue is as frenzied and complicated as it looked the night of November 15. Former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband attempted to leave the country after a Supreme Court decision permitted her to travel, only to be stopped at immigration. That night, the general sentiment was split between two opposing camps: justice served, and justice denied.
But Arroyo’s case is a much more complicated matter involving government institutions, personal interests and human rights: an Aquino-appointed Leila de Lima versus an Arroyo-appointed Supreme Court, and Arroyo’s right to travel versus the government’s desire to keep her in the country to face charges (which were actually only filed after her attempted flight).
Perhaps this is not surprising—Aquino seemed to have gotten into a pattern of acting only when prospective government action already carries the weight of inevitability, or when the least amount of political risk is involved. To wide acclaim, Aquino promised when he started his term to push for the passage of the Freedom of Information bill and the Reproductive Health bill—only to backtrack when such a posturing began to ruffle some very important feathers. During the fallout following the August 2010 Manila hostage crisis, Aquino only began acting decisively when the public need for information became too great to ignore.
Apart from that, Aquino has shied away from other contentious social issues. Despite promising to uphold agrarian reform during his campaign, he distanced himself from the Hacienda Luisita issue, ignoring his responsibility to Filipino farmers and just leaving it to the courts to issue a decision demanding the complete redistribution of the estate. Also, after the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional the Truth Commission he set up as he took office, he has taken no decisive action to prosecute the biggest and most corrupt politicians of the previous administration.
Perhaps it would be appropriate to call this a pattern of reacting. The government’s sudden filing of a case against Arroyo only when she was on the brink of possibly escaping justice seemed to be another knee-jerk move on the part of a government led by a merely reactive president.
Aquino’s claims to a “matuwid na daan” was a clear signal that his administration would focus on eliminating corruption in the country, and it was no secret that the former president would be the current government’s prime target. Yet 17 months into his term, there was hardly any progress in prosecuting Arroyo, in contrast to the haste by which Estrada was prosecuted back in 2001. Only when Arroyo tried to leave the country did the government really start moving by finally filing a case against her.
The reactive disposition of the president has already been criticized before. This observation is further evidenced by the recent flurry of government activity concerning Arroyo, after months of virtual silence from the president and the different government agencies.
Had the administration made the prosecution of Arroyo a genuine priority of the government during the start of Aquino’s term, the outcome would have been completely different. For an administration that claims to be following the righteous path, the president seems to be missing the point on how pressing some issues are, until they finally go out of hand.
