But don’t count him out just yet

By Raissa Robles

Two months before the deadline for filing of nominations to the 2010 presidential race,  I was able to interview Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero whom pollsters said at that time was running third in voters’ preference surveys.

Even then I sensed a certain hesitation on his part to answer questions that began with the phrase -   “if you were president” – or – “what would you do if you became president.” His ambivalence became more apparent as weeks went by.

Now I believe his mind was not fully made up to travel  the road to the presidency.

Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero - photo by Raissa Robles

Shortly before he bolted from his political party and withdrew from the race, two of his followers told me they were prepared to accept and follow whatever Sen. Chiz decided.  And fight another day.

It is for this reason that he could still be a factor in the race if he publicly backs any one of the candidates. Remember that as of late October last year 13% of respondents in a Pulse Asia survey chose him.  He has yet to speak out his choice as the next president.

I’d like to share with you an article I wrote on Sen. Chiz.  It was originally published in the December 2009  issue of Asian Dragon magazine, which is allowing me to put it up on my website.

♦♦

Senator Francis Escudero said he’s ready to be the President of the Republic of the Philippines next year.

“I’m ready,” the boyish-looking senator who recently turned 40 told Asian Dragon. With his short-cropped hair and slim build, Escudero could be mistaken for a yuppie fresh out of college.

But the Rolex watch on the wrist – a gift from the wife – the well-cut shirt and air of quiet confidence all say here is a young man who thrives in the halls of power.

Should he win, Escudero would be the youngest ever politician to assume the nation’s highest office.

The question of his age being brought up again and again as an issue against him is quite understandable. Filipinos had gotten so used to being ruled by by men and women past their prime, including an aging dictator.

Next year’s elections would be different. Most of the presidential candidates rating favorably in pre-election surveys are under 50, with Escudero as the youngest.

This would repeat a historical cycle that Ferdinand Marcos’ military rule had interrupted. Marcos was 48 when he became president, while Ramon Magsaysay was 46. Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who was touted to win the 1973 presidential polls that Marcos scuttled, would have been 40 during the oath-taking.

Escudero believes many now would prefer to elect someone young since a little over half of all registered voters are his age or younger, he recently told Reuters news service.

Among all the candidates, Escudero is the only one who really uses the power of the internet. He personally uses the social networking tool Twitter to touch base with young Filipinos. His tweets are accompanied by a stylized drawing of him that makes him look like a Japanese mangga comic book hero. Escudero has 12,000 followers of his tweets, roughly the same as Senator Aquino. But Aquino’s tweets indicate that someone else is doing these for him.

Closely linked to the issue of whether he was too young to run for president, Asian Dragon asked Escudero whether he thought himself “capable of being president.”

“Ha? (What)” was his reply. The question had briefly caught him off guard but the lawmaker who is known for his sound bites quickly recovered. He said in his usual rapid monotone: “If at all, I won’t even be thinking about it if I thought I was not. Not capable, but ready. Not really capable. Hindi kailangan yon. (That’s not necessary.) I’m ready. I’m ready for it.”

He pointed out that he had spent 11 years as a lawmaker – nine years in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate. Or roughly the same amount of time that two of his closest and older presidential rivals – Senators Benigno Aquino III and Manuel Villar – have spent as legislators.

Unlike them, Escudero also has had legal training from the University of the Philippines, followed by a two-year postgraduate course in international and comparative law at Georgetown University.

He gave three other reasons why he was ready: “You must be willing to turn your back after your term ends. Your heart must be in the right place and you must have the will to do what needs to be done.”

Later, he revealed he had aspired for the post at the age of five, or roughly when Marcos was the president. “That’s what my mom told me. But of course I lost it along the way….But again, why do I even have to justify my age? I don’t diminish the capabilities of those older than I am.”

Of Marcos, whom his congressman-father, Salvador, once served as agriculture minister, he said he initially had a vision for the country but did not know when it was time to go. He said nothing about Marcos’ grand-scale corruption.
Surprisingly, Escudero did not cite his eloquence as that singular quality that would make him a good president. Instead, he said, “I listen. Like a sponge….One thing we sorely lack in the present president.”

“I can accommodate information and suggestion. Dahil din siguro bata pa ako. Pag luma na ang sponge hindi na makaabsorb ng tubig. (Maybe because I’m still young. When the sponge is old, it can’t absorb water.) I listen and I study.”

His Senate office is geared for listening. It has no imposing executive desk. It only has a long shiny wooden banquet table with over a dozen chairs and a wooden display cabinet filled mostly with his law books and biographies like the late US President Richard Nixon’s.

He hasn’t read Nixon nor the rest. “Forgive me if I’m honest enough to say people gave me those books. It will be a flat out lie to say I did (read them).”

“I don’t read for fun…but the budget I read completely from cover to cover (even if) it’s boring.” His focus on the national budget is understandable since it is one of the key documents of governance. It shows who gets how much of taxpayer money.

Escudero rose to prominence because of his way with words, which he effectively used to slam President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. He was at the forefront of two impeachment moves against Arroyo in Congress.

But when asked during the interview whether he would pursue Arroyo’s prosecution if elected president, he said: “I do not seek to persecute nor prosecute her.”

“It’s not the job of the president to file a case against the former president. It’s not the job of the prosecutor’s office which is under the Office of the President.”

“It’s the job of the Ombudsman,” he said and promised to run after the Ombudsman instead. “If the Ombudsman does not do her job politically, the next government can impeach her and replace her with someone, not with someone who will persecute (Arroyo), but as long as that someone who will also defend her (Arroyo); someone who will see to it that justice will be done.”

Escudero’s own record at making the Ombudsman accountable seems to be the exact opposite of his stance today. Years ago, Escudero helped block the impeachment by Congress of Ombudsman Aniano Desierto, who was accused of not doing his job.

Escudero clarified his role: “I simply voted against the impeachment because the evidence was not clear. How can I by my lonesome stop it? As you said yourself I was a first termer. I was 28 years old. Ganon ba ko kagaling? Biglang sinisisi sa ‘kin lahat yan? (Was I that good? All these are suddenly blamed on me.) Excuse me. I did not even have a chairmanship at that time.”

Escudero is prepared to run as the official candidate of the Nationalist People’s Coalition whose founder, businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, has a slew of pending court suits filed by the state against him. Escudero said “all of them (cases) are pending before the Supreme Court and in the courts. Whoever becomes the next president should not intervene because the president has no business interfering with cases pending before the courts.”

Likewise, he said, the next president should not intervene in the ill-gotten wealth cases against the Marcoses because “again, (they are) pending in the courts.”

Escudero displayed a similar thought process and hands-off stance on the proposed anti-dynasty law. The proposal is intended to flesh out a constitutional clause by banning relatives from running for office at the same time in the same province. The committee he chairs endorsed it for approval but he inhibited himself from the deliberations because “I might be accused of having conflict of interest.” In 2007, his father ran and won the same congressional seat he had just vacated.

Escudero said he hoped to bring about change in the way of doing things. In one of his speeches, he promised to deliver on six priority areas to entice investors. These are: good governance; enforcement of laws in speedy fashion; strengthening of finances; investing in the youth; self-sufficiency in rice, corn and fish; and fast-tracking of infrastructure.

During the interview, Escudero seemed loath to use the word “I” in the same breath as the presidency. Whenever he was asked what he would do if he became president, he would say, “let’s rephrase (to) whoever becomes president (because) to me, it’s not a question of personality. I haven’t even declared (my candidacy) yet. I cannot say if I become.”

Yesterday as soon as I got up I flicked on the radio to find out whether, as Philippine Star columnist Wilson Lee Flores had predicted to me, his former macroeconomics teacher Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would  drop by Cory Aquino’s wake.

She did and as I listened to the radio commentator describe the awkward event as “civil” with Cory Aquino’s son even shaking the President’s hand, something clicked in my mind.

I can’t describe it, but while I don’t have an internal compass for street directions I seem to have one for political news. When I heard that, I felt some kind of invisible power had passed from Mrs Arroyo to Senator Aquino in that brief handshake – like magic.

Mr Aquino had risen beyond his bitter feelings and made a statesman-like gesture, and had become bigger because of it.

I must confess it was the first time I seriously considered him as a possible contender for the 2010 presidency.  Before, when I met him during a Liberal Party convention he seemed to melt into the hotel furniture. From what other reporters told me, he was a laid-back sort of fellow and was not at all hungry for political power, like his departed mother.

Considering the senator for the highest post seems to be a natural reaction after such a political death. Soon after his father Senator Benigno Aquino Junior was assassinated in 1983, people had flocked to   the slain senator’s younger brother, Agapito “Butz” Aquino. But Butz quickly begged off saying, “his shoes are too big to fill,” little realizing they would be remoulded two years later to fit his sister-in-law.

If I were a newbie reporter and Edsa People Power never happened I might even join the Noynoy bandwagon. What a romantic notion.

But I am no longer one. Whereas I used to go all goo-goo and gaga-eyed whenever I met someone who declared he or she would like to become President of the Philippines, not anymore.

I’ve met and talked to far too many men and women with that presidential twinkle in their eye:  Jovito Salonga, Imelda Marcos, Raul Manglapus (+), Raul Roco (+), Eduardo Cojuangco, Juan Ponce Enrile, Eddie Villanueva, Heherson Alvarez,  Ernesto Maceda, Edgardo Angara, Eli Pamatong, Aquilino Pimentel, Salvador Laurel (+) and a couple more whose names I don’t now remember. And I’ve covered five presidential elections.

Through it all I’ve come to realize we Filipinos tend to regard elections like a race where the candidates are like the horses to bet on.

Perhaps our elections can be viewed another way – like a long and exhausting job interview with we, the people, as the employer, the decider.

When I first got my baby a yaya (caregiver), I drew up a list of qualities I wanted and weighed the applicants against this list.  A president of a nation is equally important to me and so, permit me to  share with you the qualities I’m looking for in the next president.

1. He/she must be a basically decent person, not necessarily always praying but not amoral.
2. He/She doesn’t have to be a Harvard University graduate or very young or from a  political clan.
3. He/She must be a reformist president with a decided bias for uplifting the plight of the majority of the people who are poor, but with the ability to convince the wealthy that this will widen the consumer base for their products.  It cannot be business as usual. It cannot be trickle down.
4. He/She must have a profound ingratitude to his powerful and wealthy donors and his own class.
5. He/She must have a definite plan of concrete action from day one on the following – poverty, corruption, insurgency and Muslim unrest. When a candidate is asked for his to-do list and he answers,  “Watch me” or “Trust me,” that’s crap. Scratch him out.
6. At the same time, he/she must have the cunning of a dove, able to navigate his way through the  political snake pit.

7. He/She must be skilled in conflict resolution.
8. He/she must be a leader, not just a manager. And must inspire the citizenry to initiate action on their own.

So far, I haven’t seen a candidate who has these qualities. Do you, Noynoy?

Long before ordinary Americans propelled Barack Obama to the presidency, 1.2 million Filipinos prodded citizen-housewife Corazon Aquino to challenge the might and power of a US-backed dictator.

I am reprinting two articles written by veteran writer Paulynn “Meiling” Sicam during that magical moment when Filipinos first flexed their power to choose a presidential candidate in just 40 days. Meiling graciously gave her permission. I am reprinting it in the hope that Filipinos would once more be inspired to find and draft the best qualified citizen to be the next president.

Drafting a reluctant candidate
Cory, Don Chino and “our last chance to save democracy”

National Midweek November 6, 1985
By Paulynn P. Sicam

The lady has said she isn’t for drafting but Don Chino Roces and company have gone ahead anyway and formed the Draft Cory Aquino for President Movement. Word has it that Cory actually received the old man icily the day before the launching of the movement and asked him not to go through with it. But Don Chino and company, the likes of self-proclaimed Unido and Liberal Party political mechanic Tony Gatmaitan, businessman Victor Sison, recording industry executive Danny Olivares, former Bureau of Fisheries executive Benny Bengzon, angry Air Force wife Lorna Verano Yap, hard-working concerned citizen Imelda Nicolas, and several others, undauntedly proclaimed their intention to gather one million signatures in an attempt to persuade Ninoy Aquino’s widow to run or President.
“Our gathering here this afternoon could be a great moment in our history,” declared Don Chino at the National Press Club last October 15 [1985]. On the other hand, the press seemed to think it could be just another less than great beginning, one of those flights of fancy carried by balloons that burst before they can really take off.
The press sat there cynically questioning every idealistic argument put forth by Don Chino, who that afternoon, looked like Don Quixote de la Mancha fighting windmills. With no guarantee that his candidate for president would accept the draft, he spoke of her as the “healing, inspiring, unifying voice” that our country needs at this time, the sorrowing widow who he hopes “will shed her mother’s garments for the battle tunic of a political warrior.”
“Cory Aquino is our only hope,” said the revered old man of the Parliament of the Streets. Thus, the movement he was launching.
Cory, he elaborated, incarnates the Aquino legacy “of blood, courage, integrity and martyrdom” bequeathed by Ninoy Aquino on that hot August afternoon in 1983. Secondly, “only Cory can bind the factional wounds of the opposition, persuade them to close ranks, bestir them to march for the country, and rouse the Filipino people to feats of dignity, honor and courage.” Third, Cory’s “moral stature” which, his group thinks, would make even “men of valor in the armed forces…recoil from desecrating and brutalizing the elections if she were a candidate.” Finally, Cory Aquino can bring to government “the best minds that the nation can offer in terms of dedication, sincerity and integrity, talent and patriotism.”
This, declared Roces gravely, “could be our last chance to save democracy in the Philippines. The darkness thickens and we have to move.”
Providing the counterpoint to Don Chino’s emotional approach was Tony Gatmaitan who confessed that he sees in this Draft Cory Aquino for President Movement an “exciting opportunity” to measure the depth of the ordinary citizen’s desire to have her as president. He and his group feel that it is there, an emotional conviction in many people’s hearts that this quiet, unassuming widow is the only one among the oppositionists who has the moral leadership to unite the opposition and defeat Marcos in an election.
Should they succeed in generating one million signatures, and enough enthusiasm from the ordinary unorganized Filipinos to persuade Cory to run, Gatmaitan intends to represent the numbers to the political parties. This should be interesting, he said, his eyes twinkling at the idea: “people power” versus the machine. Indeed, for a political mechanic, it is an exciting proposition.
The idea of a Draft Cory Movement, observed a member of the foreign press, seems to stem from a feeling of frustration at the inability of the opposition to get its act together and present a unified stand versus the Marcos dictatorship.
True, in Don Chino’s opening remarks, he referred to the disarray among traditional political parties, the bickering among the oppositionists, and the cacophony of voices wasted on trivial issues.
The movement is not only for the purpose of drafting Cory Aquino as a candidate for president, explained Secretary General Victor Sison, a soft-spoken heretofore non-political former Atenean. It is also to achieve unity among the opposition groups. And, he maintained, Cory is the person who can do this.
But what if the National Unification Council, of which Cory is a major force, selects another candidate other than Cory? What will CAPM and its one million signatories do?
Why, support that one candidate, said Chino Roces. There is no one person or party we are trying to put down, assured Sison. We are trying to get them to get their act together. And we believe only Cory can do this.
It was beginning to sound like a mantra. Only Cory can do it. Cory is our only hope. If only Cory would run. If only she were willing.
Tony Gatmaitan, chairman of the movement’s finance committee said he thinks he can get P30 million in pledges before the end of the year for the idea of Cory as candidate. “If Cory is to be really the people’s candidate, then the people should put their money where their mouth is.,” he said.
So far, after one month of quiet work, the CAPM people have gathered 18,000 signatures. What started as a small force in Quezon City now has chapters in the whole of Metro Manila and Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Sorsogon, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Iloilo, Capiz, Davao Oriental and Quezon Province.
More chapters are expected to be set up as the movement snowballs and the grandest hopes of the organizers about Cory’s acceptability to the Filipino people are confirmed.
Thus, concluded the CAPM, Cory will not possibly be able to turn down the draft. Meanwhile, expect to read and hear that urgent mantra for the next few months as Don Chino and company make good their promise to give all they’ve got to what they perceive is the last chance to save democracy in this land. (Paulynn P. Sicam has just come back from Stanford University where she was a journalism fellow.)

Cory Joins the Race

National Midweek, December 18, 1985

By Paulynn P. Sicam

When Cory Aquino announced her candidacy for the presidency last December 3, the audience inside the auditorium of the Mondragon Building in Makati broke into prolonged applause. Not a few wept tears of joy and relief. The waiting was finally over. Now her prodders could finally be called her followers. They could finally buckle down to work and get the show on the road.
The tension had been building up for more than a month. It began when Don Chino Roces, former publisher and everyone’s favorite street parliamentarian , decided to form a citizen’s movement that would urge Cory Aquino to run for president via one million signatures. Roces and his gang of idealists (who at the time seemed destined for failure) called Cory “our last hope for democracy.” investing her with a mantle of moral righteousness.
Cory reacted to the draft with something akin to hostility. She pleaded with the group to desist from what they were planning, and when her plea fell on Don Chino’s deaf ears, she declared that she was not interested in the presidency and would have nothing to do with the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM).
Finally, after some lonely days in the doghouse, Don Chino’s persistence began to pay off. At a luncheon with the Sigma Delta Phi Sorority late in October, Cory gave two conditions that would make her decide to run if Don Chino and company could get one million signatures, and if the election was a snap election.
Meanwhile, she said, she would be praying and reflecting and seeking advice, both human and divine. She asked everyone to pray for her too and help her make the right decision. Every inquiry, every request for an interview was turned down as Cory went into partial seclusion searching her mind and her heart for answers.
The high premium she put on prayer and trust in God made Cory’s quest for an answer, in the minds of many, seem as noble and as difficult as the search for the Holy Grail. It also created the impression that every act of many that met her conditions was really an act of divine intervention, telling Cory what to do next.
First came Marcos’ announcement on American television last November 3 that he was calling a snap election. It did not matter that Marcos was succumbing to American pressure to hold early elections. It did not even matter that Marcos’ rules were dubious. The call for snap elections fulfilled Cory’s second condition. After that, the Cory Aquino for President Movement was unstoppable. Volunteers set up tables on street corners and in marketplaces, went into towns and barrios, seeking signatures who wanted Cory to run. From Aparri to Jolo, Chino Roces said, the signatures came in bunches – from three names to thousands sent via special air freight, or hand carried to the office by concerned citizens. By November 26, Chino Roces was borne on the shoulders of his fellow-volunteers as they counted the one millionth authentic signature of the nationwide campaign.
For people who have been used to the instant groundswells of support that the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan is so adept at producing when the need arises, 41 days seemed an awfully long time to gather one million signatures. So, six volunteers did nothing but go through sign-up sheets, eliminating questionable entries, (such as the names of Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, Bongbong Marcos, Imee Marcos Manotoc, Tommy Manotoc and Irene Marcos Araneta), or a series of signatures seemingly done by one hand, and other such anomalies.
On November 27, Ninoy’s birthday, Cory attended a rally in Tarlac where politicians and friends took turns extolling her virtues, and giving every reason why she should be the next president of the Philippines. Cory shook her head with every praise, every campaign pitch. But when her turn to speak came, she quoted Ninoy: “I will never be able to forgive myself if I have to live with the knowledge that I could have done something and I did not do anything.”
That was good enough for Cory-ites who clung to her every deliberate phrase. They knew her to be a careful speaker, not one to waste her words. She measured the weight and meaning of everything she said.
On December 1, one million two hundred thousand signatures were presented to Cory by a crowd of 15,000 at the Santo Domingo church after evening mass. Th sheets of paper, fastened in fat bulging folders tied with yellow ribbons, were blessed by a priest and received by Cory.
Cory was no longer cryptic at Santo Domingo Church. “I will announce my decision after Mr. Marcos signs Cabinet Bill No. 7,” she promised.”but I assure you, you will hear what you want to hear.”
And then the seemingly insecure non-politician came to the fore once again: “If I were a traditional politician, I would be very happy standing before you tonight. But I am not a traditional politician and so I am very nervous when I think of the difficult days that lie ahead.”
The following morning, Monday, December 2, the Sandiganbayan’s verdict on the Aquino-Galman murder case was handed down. Innocent, said the three-man court of General Fabian Ver and 24 other officers and enlisted men of the Armed Forces, and one civilian. Debunking the findings of the Agrava Board that Aquino and Galman were both victims of a military conspiracy, the Sandiganbayan ruled that all 26 were not guilty of any crime because the military team that killed Galman did so in the performance of their duty. And, of course, Ninoy Aquino was killed by Galman.
Within an hour, Cory was facing the press and reiterating her stand holding Marcos responsible for the murder of her husband. “He is my number one suspect,” she declared, as she has always said since August 21, 1983.
But, speaking with tact and diplomacy, with an eye on being the future commander-in-chief, Cory wooed the military establishment. She said it was misguided elements who had a direct hand in the assassination of her husband; she was not prepared to condemn all 13,000 officers and the enlisted men of the AFP. In a direct message to the “decent elements” in the military she asked for help to get to the truth behind her husband’s savage killing.
On Monday evening, the Batasang Pambansa passed Cabinet Bill No. 7 during its last session for 1985, paving the way for snap elections. Later that night, President Marcos signed the bill into law.
Tuesday morning, true to her word, Cory announced her intention to run for president of the Philippines.
“How Ninoy must be laughing!” was how Butz Aquino spoke of Cory’s dilemma some weeks back when she prayed and sought advice on what to do about the snowballing draft. The position Ninoy had sought so avidly in 1972 was now being given to his wife on a silver platter. His wife, whom he had kept at home because that was where he believed a woman ought to stay. His wife, who had accepted Ninoy’s chauvinist attitude toward women because she did not want to frustrate the kind of life her husband found fulfilling.
“Talk of poetic justice! Marcos wanted Ninoy out of the way, but Ninoy’s spirit lives to haunt him forever,” said an ecstatic Makati matron.
It was a very difficult decision, said Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma of Cory’s announcement. “I could not have made that decision for her. She made it all by herself.” the justice confided that ever since she advised Ninoy to come home, she swore she would never again be part of other decisions in th future.
If Ninoy could only see Cory Now! The shy housewife who kept herself busy reading light fiction and doing bonsai in the year before martial law was now holding her own in discussions on US bases in the Philippines (out by 1991, if the global situation allows it); on the insurgency (home-grown, with no external help and therefore no external threat to the country); on General Ver’s immediate reinstatement as Chief of Staff (if General Ver could not provide adequate security for one man, how can he secure 54 million Filipinos?) With candor and confidence, Cory revealed that she had been having daily talks with Doy laurel and that she had offered him the vice-presidency.
Was this the inexperienced political neophyte whom people feared would buckle under pressure and intimidation – this woman who was married to the ultimate politician for 28 years, who endured eight years as a political detainee’s wife under th most difficult years of martial rule, who upon the killing of her husband stood up to the most awesome powers in the land and accused them of the murder of her husband, and who, today, against almost insurmountable odds, would pit herself against Marcos’ machinery, machinations and resources, knowing full well the might of her opponent? Was this the woman whom some solicitous souls in the Opposition wanted to protect by keeping her out of the snap election?
“I can be very stubborn,” Cory has said of herself. And though she may seek advice from all and sundry, in the final analysis, she makes her own decisions. Yes, including this tremendous decision to run, preempting Doy Laurel with her early announcement , and leaving him little room to maneuver except around her.

I smile whenever I hear that over 12,000 policemen and soldiers will physically secure President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and legislators this Monday when she delivers her State of the Nation address.
Because the real threat to their security in office is a grandmother lying on her sick bed, agonizing in pain from colon cancer.
Now some of you might be angry at me for bringing this up at such a delicate time. I believe Mrs Aquino would have it no other way. She herself has actually linked her personal pain with the country’s current suffering.
On her sickbed, a month after surgery, she sent over a message during the June 10, 2009 rally to mark Independence Day. She could have just stayed silent and everyone would have understood.
But no, her grandson Kiko – symbolically representing the next generation – read out his lola’s (grandma’s) brief message saying: “Over the years, I have learned to endure pain and sadness.”
“But perhaps, there is nothing that causes me greater pain than to see our people betrayed again and again by those they have elected to lead and serve them. To those of us who fought long and hard to restore our democracy, the pain deepens at the thought that all our gains have so quickly been eroded.”
She lashed out at “the shameful abuses of the powerful that seek to destroy our sacred laws.”
Perhaps Mrs Arroyo’s spin doctors might sniff that between housewife Aquino and the economist Arroyo, the latter has more accomplishments as president such as the highest GDP growth in decades.
Mrs Aquino did have her failings as president, such as a watered down agrarian reform law that benefited her family and her inability to wield the vast powers of a revolutionary government to reform democracy.
But one thing Mrs Aquino has done is to set a gold standard of behavior for the presidency. She has given the average Filipino the highly subversive notion that all Philippine presidents and politicians must be accountable to the people for their actions.
That idea, I believe, is the biggest security threat to the Arroyo administration.