Manolo Quezon is #TheExplainer Newsletter - Issue #29

Aug 30, 2021

A long form reflection for today's newsletter.

Electoral Merry-Go-Round:

Yesterday, I got a surprise call from an 89 year old reader, who said she was amazed by how suddenly the ruling coalition seems intent on destroying itself. Got me thinking on What Trillanes identified early on, but President successfully deflected: proving he has unexplainable wealth.

Some thoughts today on the situation as it's emerging. Taking a cue from thinking all day/night about what the reader commented yesterday.

I've long argued that administrations fail/fall less from the doings of their critics/enemies and more as a result of a misstep by presidents including their eventual inability to corral their coalitions. Outside pressure is constant given, but will fail in and of itself.

What will do a president or administration in is as old as the story of power itself: more often than not, hubris (granting this is always accompanied by nemesis).Even when there is an instance when there is an "emperor has no clothes" moment, that's often self-inflicted.

Anyway what had long left me wondering was the inability vto prove any financial wrongdoing on the part of the president, because of the lack of any glaring proof to the contrary, because his lifestyle is fairly modest and lacks the trappings of rich living. Tho some did point to portable items like watches and motorcycles but that is peanuts compared to the excess that outraged the public in the past. What allegations have been whispered are small potatoes relatively speaking and strictly small town in scale. There simply was no proof to be seen.

To be sure he barricaded himself behind a sandbag wall of threats. Which is why it's no coincidence that it's in the traditional lame duck season that the accusations are not only getting more pointed, but armed with actual evidence. Consider the face shield revelations. One could even argue it's been enough to (temporarily at least) deflate the Go trial balloon. The timing was enough to revive the Pacquiao-Pimentel insurgency, and perhaps even get enough people to start talking (seriously) of bad blood between the President's daughter and himself plus Go. These aren't tussles that can be rationally explained away.

It still spares the President in the manner allegations against Imelda Marcos spared her husband on the excuse that he was either deceived or betrayed; the same can be said of the spat between the President's daughter and Go, on the same grounds. It becomes a destabilizing conflict precisely because it can't be explained away or factored in on rational grounds: so used to the formerly solid (or solid-appearing) front that even critics are skeptical something so formerly ironclad could be unraveling over "feelings." But it happens. And if so it pulls the plug on the fear factor. Here the surest sign of this isn't exactly in politics but the pandemic fatigue that is, anecdotally at least, resulting in observance of pandemic restrictions more in the breach than anything else. The government is out of ideas. The public has taken the measure of the authorities --as vit always does-- and decided it can do what it damned well pleases because the limits of what government can do is obvious to everyone. It's difficult to empirically define but we as a citizenry knows when these moments arrive.

I've been arguing the President isn't really bold, what he does is create straw men --easy targets-- for the spectacle of knocking them down knowing ahead of time they can't, or won't, put up a real fight. He is running out of useful targets to knock down. Which is not to say he lacks the residual momentum or motivation to try to arrange a succession on his terms: fear is still there, money is there, and the pandemic works in his favor by suppressing turnout, possibly. Nor does his running out steam mean the nation's infatuation with wanting iron-fisted rule has played out. I still believe we are in that period where one era, the liberal-democratic one defined by 1986-2016, has ended, and another, order-craving one, has begun. I still think the pandemic will only feed that craving, not repudiate it. The only phenomenon more interesting than the current Autumn of the Patriarch, is the seeming (to me, anyway) inability of Ferdinand Jr. to recapture what he lost in 2016 --that aura of looming inevitability-- in which the political class seems reluctant to engage him, to the extent that his own sister has been dangling him as a potential veep to Inday Sara --a humiliating recognition of reality which probably has a healthy dose of malicious enjoyment on the part of his sister. Satisfying that may be, it still leaves the various strands of the old Center and Left as outliers.If one looks at public opinion, for the ruling coalition, the worst is over; there is a kind of opening for a Stockhold Syndrome to work: having survived, there is a weird solidarity possible to pitch. And plenty of room to pitch more of the same as an antidote to taking a risk.

To officialdom, the political players, a pitch can be made for the most accountability-free six years in living memory; to the middle and upper classes, for retaining an iron grip rather than risk a relaxation and thus even more of an upsurge in crime; to accomplices, protection.These are all powerful, attractive because self-interested, appeals, in contrast to the appeals to idealism and unity on the part of generations-old antagonisms experienced by forces loosely defined as the "opposition."

But in closing: no one expected the ruling coalition to fragment and fight amongst itself like it's doing now, and there lies the unpredictability of things.

An Exchange of Views

A reader responded with some thoughts that I'd like to share in edited form:

On BBM, he's still there although not a dominant player[because it seems he is] hesitant about going all in with his money. Maybe he thinks the Marcos name is enough to carry him. Seems he still has to notice the only presidential families who were able to remain players past 10 years after their terms are Arroyo and Marcos and only because of [what] they amassed. There is "moral capital" but it's a far second to real capital. BBM should wake up to the reality that he is nothing without his money. [Particularly at present when] they are not the richest anymore....Arroyo is probably almost as rich and Duterte if not richer has more resources at his disposal and politico-businessmen like RA, Villar, MVP plus the casino rich like Ricky Razon have the politicash to [match] BBM.

If he wants to be taken seriously, [he has to make his wallet felt because] money is power.

[By the way] your thread mentioning hubris also made me reflect on Ninoy's assassination which I like everybody thought was a fatal miscalculation that marked the beginning of the end. [But it would have been] salvageable if only Marcos handled the post assassination correctly. [After all the gossip] he was incapacitated when it happened [had gained traction]. So [there was] reasonable doubt about his direct involvement and being that he was still the dictator [there was still the] hesitancy [among the] public & the oligarchy to go all out against him. It took 3 yrs [more] to work up enough steam. Anyway what [did him in], what convinced people that he was behind it was the way he handled the post assassination. He had a commission white wash the crime instead of playing to the public by allowing the commission to get to the truth, expressing surprise and disappointment that trusted people took matters into their own hands, and then sending them to the gallows. Anyway, loyal soldiers will always fall on their swords for their CIC, [right]? So big mistake [was the] assassination [but] fatal mistake [was the] cover up. He missed a golden scapegoat opportunity because his loyalty to those who carried out the assassination blinded him to what he needed to do to survive.