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Arroyo
as Filipina Indira
She
is small, like a sparrow, but has a surprisingly firm grip when
shaking your hand. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, 53, has all the airs
of one who belongs to the ruling elite of the Philippines’
highly stratified social structure.
She
is trying to read to me a passage from her father, President Diosdado
Macapagal’s book Stone for the Edifice. Her aide stands behind
her, trying to catch her attention. He is nervously clutching her
spectacles. Noticing his discomfiture, I make a gesture to the president.
‘‘He is trying to hand you your reading glasses,’’
I whisper. Without lifting her eyes from the page, she says firmly,
‘‘I know he is there; I will ask for my glasses when I
need them.’’ Her very obsequious looking aide vanishes.
And
yet there is nothing high handed or arrogant about her demeanour.
She has, after all, lived at Manila’s Malacanang Palace as
a girl when her father was President. She simply has the carriage
of one who rejects without offending. ‘‘The legitimacy
of my government cannot be challenged,’’ she says emphatically.
Does
she derive some of her appeal from the dynastic factor, her father
having been President? She sits up. ‘‘Is George Bush part
of a dynasty?’’ she shoots back.
The
fact that her father had risen from the ranks — he was the
son of a laundry woman — has been totally erased from Arroyo’s
make-up. She is seen as part of the Manila elite — a fact which
sets her up in class opposition to the man she ousted (or rather
people’s power ousted), Joseph Estrada. This is the source
of her current difficulties.
Some
of her overzealous advisers did to Estrada what the first Janata
government did to Indira Gandhi. TV pictures of Estrada in a tiny
cell in prison conferred on him a sort of martyrdom similar to the
halo around Indira Gandhi’s head after her routine and unseemly
parade before the Shah Commission.
That Estrada has been a popular film star also confers on him the
kind of cinematic charisma available to MGR, N. T. Rama Rao and
to some extent Jayalalita. What has surprised the Manila intelligentsia
is that Estrada’s man-of-the-poor image has super-ceded unbelievable
scales of corruption with which his regime was identified. The image
of the hero fallen on bad days has clearly had more appeal for the
mobs than the hero having fallen into bad ways.
Sociologists
worldwide have to delve very deep before they come up with answers
to the alarming question: why has co-ÿrruption (even proven
corruption) ceased to matter in the people’s court — namely
elections. Estrada, Jayalalita and Italy’s Berlusconi are only
some of the more recent examples of corrupt politicians cleared
by the people. This is a major challenge to democratic functioning.
When
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be in Malaysia on May 13,
most of his Malaysian interlocutors will have half their eye focussed
on the disturbing instability that has engulfed two of their ASEAN
neighbours - Philippines and Indonesia, the latter being much the
more serious. Political exchange with a leader as shrewd as Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohammed will be rewarding. Both the countries
in turbulence are exceedingly well disposed towards India. Gloria
Arroyo understands that the cold war kept the two nations apart.
‘‘But
today we must build a relationship that is mutually beneficial.
Not only is there an influential Indian business community in the
Philippines, there is also a great awareness in our country of India’s
vast potential in Information Technology. In fact that makes India,
very, very important to us. We can never match India because of
it’s sheer size. We would like to be a little Bangalore.’’
Arroyo talks of the gradual architecture of ASEAN plus three, the
three being China, Japan and Korea. But she agrees that 10+4 (including
India) is possible provided all the ASEAN countries see the logic
of that proposition, ‘‘including India’s long boundary
with Myanmar.’’
Indian
pharmaceutical industry must also take advantage of Arroyo’s
desire to reach medicines to “the poor in outlying areas”
as inexpensively as possible. Groups like Ranbaxy and Wockhardt
may like to step up their efforts to penetrate the market of 75
million people.
‘‘Indian
medicines are already coming in, in a small way’’ she
says. She knows there will be resistance from the entrenched vested
interests. ‘‘But the fact that I have a secretary of health
who comes from the pharmaceutical industry will help open up the
bottlenecks.’’
The
election results to the 24-member Senate and 208-member Congress
on May 14 will be of interest because Arroyo’s future may depend
on how she fares, with Estrada’s shadow lurking behind her.
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