We hate Con-Ass because we hate the people associated with it, and the person they in turn are associated with: Gloria.  We hate Cha-cha because we hate Gloria.

The thing with Cha-cha is Gloria.

… that we are not facing the prospect of a failed Democracy. Marcos came under the auspices of popular vote, and some people who had not felt the wrath of army troops crashing in their doors or abusive PCs forcing dissenters to one humiliating experience after another, may have had neutral to good experiences under Martial Law.    Marcos politicized and corrupted traditionally neutral and solid institutions, and compromised the foundations of what traditional politics was about,  but in exchange there was peace and order.   The firm hand of dictatorship does bring peace and order to those who submit to its authority.

Try as we might, representing the EDSA Generation, we cannot bring back the old, traditional system that came before Marcos.    It wasn’t a perfect system to begin with.    Marcos might have promised something better from that traditional system that encouraged voters to his side; and when he won reelection, people might have already had prior experience of unpopular leadership that extending any person to power might have been too much.

The railroading of Cha-cha, through Con-Ass, the PIRMA plebiscite, and its various incarnations… have all come through the legitimate instrument of democratic process.    The defeat of the various impeachments came under the auspices of democratic process.    Hitler came to power under the cloak of legitimacy, having failed first in his Bavarian putsch and then under his bid for the Presidency (with Ludendorff as his would be representative).

Democracy was built under the shaky pillars of compromise, and necessarily, there are cracks and holes in the system where laws can be bent to suit the purpose of the ones in power.   But it was created under the assumption that it was the best, given the circumstances.   While Henry David Thoreau deplored throwing away his voice to the vote, where a multitude would carry it away, at least order was maintained.   The mob was represented.

The problem of Cha-cha may lie on vesting greater maybe absolute powers on a branch of Government.    But our fears belie the intentions.    We condemn the House not primarily because of its “selfish, greedy motives” to extend power to themselves, but to extend them to Gloria.    It is clear that we are afraid of them extending their terms to lifetime spans, but we cringe at the thought of extending to lifetime the term of Gloria.

No, the issue is not that Cha-cha may weaken or destroy Constitutional integrity.   The reform of 1983 was the destruction of the Constitutional integrity of 1973.    There is some agreement that Constitutional reform to the point of changing provisions is needed, because of its many defects.  We are painfully aware that something is terribly wrong when military coups and civil rebellions are the annual norm.    And there is debate on a Unicameral/Bicameral system, signifying that the Parliamentary Unicameral system is not bad.

Are we that much afraid of a Nograles Parliament?   The rubber-stamp House that time and again has been accused of toting or kowtowing to the Palace?   The Congressional leaders that were given their regular “salaries” in shopping bags?   While we deplore the thought of these “self-serving, greedy” solons sitting year after year in the same Seat, this is not much different from a different “self-serving, greedy” solon sitting in that seat four years later.   And we have become convinced of the absolute “evil” of this Congress, that we tend to gloss over the fact that they have done some good.   Not all the good laws, after all, come from the Senate.

Prime ministers, in other countries, do not become dictatorships.   Angela Merkel is not the absolute ruler of Germany, and is handling a shaky compromise Parliament between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.    Blair and Brown have a compromise power-sharing in Britain.    Parliaments from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea have collapsed following scandal or economic downturns.

We came into contact with Marcos’ Parliament, and we’ve had the experience (or inherited memory) of seeing a rubber-stamp Parliament bow and bow to the Executive Decrees of a Marcos that became more and more intolerable.   We have made Marcos so much the boogeyman of our political nightmares that we gloss over the accomplishments (and there were) under his Presidency.

But the thought of giving possible absolute power to a Prime Minister is not that nightmarish.    The thought, in fact, of giving absolute power to anyone is not immediately nightmarish.   Franco, in Spain, was hated by some, but remained popular, returning legitimate power to the monarchs.    Cuba’s Castro, while the exiles in Miami talk of the deplorable state of the country, was generally loved by the Cuban people for his sincerity.

It is not the position, that we are afraid of, but the person in that position.   Traumatized by the memory (or what we heard) of Martial Law, we have mistrusted anyone even remotely tainted with the position of absolute authority, judging it from past knowledge of Marcos.     We are even more critical of the Parliamentary system, not because of the people sitting, but because they would be bowing to the PM, and we hate the thought of giving that much power to Gloria.

We hate Con-Ass because we hate the people associated with it, and the person they in turn are associated with: Gloria.  We hate Cha-cha because we hate Gloria.

The thing with Cha-cha is Gloria.

Go back to 2001.  We brought Estrada down using the “Parliament of the Streets”.   People were unsure if they could trust the successor.  After all, it wasn’t just Estrada that was corrupted, but the whole damn system.    So there were calls that went so far as “Resign all!  Davide take charge!” because we felt that Davide was the one person untainted.

We pinned our hopes on Gloria, and assumed the worst.   The point was, we were so stung by Estrada, that we could not trust that anything could be better if it wasn’t radically good.   Like a bad break-up, we associated anyone else with the worst possible qualities; Short of a halo, any successor would be as corrupt as Estrada.   So when May 2001 and Edsa Tres erupted, though the masa in the streets were fighting for Erap, the audience from the TV were rooting to get Gloria out.   Why?  Because we already had the prejudice that she was no better.   No one liked her in power.

A person that those around him likes would be “understood”.   The people around Kennedy knew about his liaisions with Marilyn, but he was so charismatic that they forgave him.    Obama is enjoying this same treatment by the media.    Those that they prejudice against, every little vice gets magnified.   Ramos during his days in office had his share of corruption.   But he was generally liked, and the economy was good.   The wealth and prosperity was associated with his Presidency, and even as he ushered in the SPCPD, which gave autonomy to Mindanao, it was cheered.

But since Day 1 we never liked Gloria.   We wanted an idealistic reformer that would “clean” the pus of the previous regime.    She wasn’t.   She didn’t come out worse at that time, but just no different.    So evidence was piled one after the other to prove that she was no different than Erap, or the boogeyman Marcos.   We wanted the idealist Davide, not the worldly Gloria.   And the vice that any politician would have to her was magnified to make it seem that she was a worse Marcos.

In the end, we found that she was.   The rate of corruption had become so vulgar, so crude, that Pork Barrel proposals were splashed on the newspaper without even a hint of awkwardness.   Maybe it was just the fatigue of trying to prove herself to a people who hated her anyway, maybe her personality really was worse than a Marcos; either way, we hated her even more for being proved right.

We could not stand one more year with her, so every year starting with 2003 we had military coups, protest rallies, then from 2004 impeachments ad nauseam.   We hated Erap the way we hated Gloria.     If it was an Aquino who cheated with Garcillano in 2005 we would be the ones defending her, and the Congressional inquiries would be brushed aside.   But we used Garcillano to feed the fire to our already-present prejudice, which admittedly was somewhat irrational.   Palaban lang si Gloria, and used her street-smarts to fight back.   Thus we see Lacson’s Dacer and Kuratong coming to light; and the PAOCTF dismantled because of Triad connections.   She was also politically savvy, and used every tactic in the book to her advantage.

So we hated her because she was nothing like the leader we wished for after Estrada.   That she was corrupt merely fanned the hatred, and made us feel that she did deserve our ire.    Journalist killings have been present even during the Aquino and Ramos administrations, but have become most keenly felt under Gloria.    There was the CARP scandal during Aquino’s time, and the Mendiola massacre, and not once did we ask Cory to step down.   But ZTE and Jose Pidal comes out, and we are out on the streets shouting ourselves hoarse for Gloria to step down.

Not that the grievances were not justified, but that the reactions to them were blown out of proportion.   When Gloria came to power,  and she did not fit our idea of ruler, we assumed the worst for her: so we were right with ZTE, we were right with Jose Pidal; we were right with her trying to court Martial Law– and though Gloria was dangerously courting Martial Law, we were even more pissed that it had to be her courting Martial Law.

We have made Marcos so much the boogeyman of our political nightmares that we gloss over the accomplishments (and there were) under his Presidency.    We have made Gloria so much our boogeyman that we have glossed over her accomplishments (and there have been– there are good people out there in government).

Except that we can’t help it.   We can’t help hating Gloria for what she did, because we can’t help hating Gloria for what we imagined her to be that first time.   And we can’t help ourselves with the irrational fear of Gloria inventing one or another contraption to extend power the way the Wile E. Coyote uses ACME products to capture the Road Runner.

There is no strong enough personality to dominate Parliament, without Gloria.   So, though we grumble, some would shrug if the government was transformed.

But the thing with Cha-cha is our neurosis.  With Gloria.   And our image of her Wile E. Coyote ways.

So before we tackle the problem of Con-Ass.

How do we first solve our problem of Gloria?