Posted on 05/18/2010 10:42:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In their hunt for someone good, wholesome and incorruptible, Philippines voters have conclusively chosen Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III to be their next president.
But amid the general euphoria over Aquino's victory, there are some concerns about how this hitherto unremarkable senator will survive in the shark-infested waters of Philippines politics.
There is one shark in particular of which he should be especially wary.
Outgoing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, has been elected to Congress and wants to become House Speaker.
The widespread suspicion is she sees this as a pivotal position from which she can continue to promote her drive for a change to a parliamentary system that would give her the opportunity to return to power as prime minister.
However, Aquino, a senator since 2007 whose main claim to political fame and success is his parents' reputation, has an advantage over Arroyo and her ambitions if he has the will to use it.
His margin of victory in the election gives him unassailable legitimacy in office, while Arroyo ended her second term as one of the most unpopular and mistrusted presidents in recent Philippines history.
Aquino won over 40 per cent of the vote in a nine-candidate race. His closest rival was former president Joseph Estrada with 25 per cent.
Aquino's support was in part a reaction to the perceived corruption and heavy-handed suppression of opponents by the Arroyo administration.
More directly, it was an outpouring of sympathy and even sentimentality by Philippines voters after the death from cancer last year of Aquino's mother, Cory Aquino, whose 1986 "People Power" revolution ousted the old dictator Ferdinand Marcos and heralded her own election to the presidency.
"Noynoy" Aquino seems a lot like his mother, a decent person with good intentions but little administrative skill. Her political credibility flowed from her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., who led the opposition to Marcos and was murdered at Manila airport in 1983 when he returned from exile in the United States.
The new president Aquino has inherited a host of problems.
The Philippines economy is in dire straits, corruption is endemic and there are two long-smouldering insurrections -- communists in the north and Muslim separatists with links to al-Qaida in the south.
Aquino has said he will set up a panel after taking office next month to try to restart negotiations with the Communist New People's Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
He has also said a priority will be to combat corruption, and especially to create a commission to look into the many allegations against Arroyo and her billionaire husband, Miguel "Mike" Arroyo.
She has been accused of corruption, vote-buying and fixing the result when she was re-elected in 2004.
There are questions about Mike Arroyo's involvement in many government contracts, including a major telecommunications contract with China.
Human rights organizations have raised questions about the more than 800 leftist sympathizers who were shot and killed during her administration.
Investigating and perhaps prosecuting Arroyo will be a major test of Aquino's political abilities and backbone.
In her last weeks in office, Arroyo has attempted to insulate herself and her husband against prosecution with the appointment of her loyalists to key positions.
Her former chief of staff, Renato Corona, was appointed to the Supreme Court over much more qualified candidates.
Arroyo also put her supporters at senior posts in the armed forces and the ombudsman's anti-graft court.
But loyalty in Philippines politics, as elsewhere, tends to go to the person with the keys to the patronage cupboard, and those keys are now in Aquino's hands.
And there were some indications in the election results that Arroyo may not be able to wield the power in the Congress that she hopes.
A slate of nearly 20 of her former ministers, family members and other political supporters has not done nearly as well in elections to the House of Representatives as she needs to become Speaker.
The estimates are that Arroyo can count on only about 90 votes in the 242-seat House.
laying the template to explain the impending Obama Epic Fail...”he was just too nice a guy”....yadda yadda...
I knew Abu Sayyaf thugs were active in the south, but I thought that the HUKBALAHAP problem had been eradicated.
RE: HUKBALAHAP
They were known as the HUKs for short.
The Huks instigated the Hukbalahap Rebellion, a communist insurgency that lasted from 1946 to 1954, against the Philippine government. The insurgency was finally put down through a series of reforms and military victories by then Filipino President Ramon Magsaysay.
After the Chinese-Soviet split in the late 1960’s, the Maoists in the older pro-USSR PKP left in 1968 to form the new Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
In 1969, in something of a Huk revival, the splinter CPP formed the New People’s Army (NPA) and launched a “protracted people’s war” that lasts to this day. In 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos cited this armed resistance movement as the reason for his imposition of martial law.
At its peak in the early 1980s there were over 25,000 New People’s Army (NPA) fighters. Current strength is estimated at 8,000.
The NPA has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United States.
On January, 2008, Avelino Razon, Philippine National Police chief stated that the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels have only 5,700 members as of 2007 due to military destruction of 13 guerrilla bases (lowest level in 20 years). NPAs fought in 69 of 81 Philippine provinces since 1969. Forty thousand people have died in the conflict.
I was stationed in the Philippines 61-62, and the Huks at the time were minor irritants, more bandits than anything else.
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