Gloria Arroyo

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on May 22nd, 2012

Nothing short of high drama was expected - and that’s exactly what Filipinos got.

Singapore elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew was once quoted as saying “this Hollywood-style melodrama could only have happened in the Philippines” in reference to a previous political hi-jink - and he might have said the same now.

It was to be the climax of the battle between the executive and the judicial branches of government. A colourful clash of the “old” and the “new”. Depending on who was looking at it.

On the one hand, the two-year-old self-proclaimed reformist administration of President Benigno Aquino III working to rid the nation of “institutionalised corruption”.

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on November 20th, 2011
Former President Arroyo seen with a 3kg halo brace which was screwed to the base of her skull in this undated photo. [Reuters]

The roller-coaster ride began on Tuesday.  

Late in the afternoon, the Supreme Court spokesman was live across both television and radio announcing that a temporary restraining order had just been issued on a government travel ban against former president Gloria Arroyo.

The justices had voted eight to five to allow her to go abroad for medical treatment. Arroyo has a bone disease complicated by hyperparathyroidism, and has been in and out of hospital for months.  

Shortly after the Supreme Court announcement, Arroyo appointed a legal representative to handle any matters in her absence, and paid the nearly $40,000 bond that were two of three conditions for her departure.  

The third was that she check-in with the Philippine embassy at her destination. 

The travel ban was first put in place by the justice department pending investigations into allegations of corruption and electoral fraud during her presidency.

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on November 23rd, 2010



It was the fist just barely peeking out of the freshly-dug soil.

That’s the image I can't forget. 

And we saw it in-person, without the seeming “protection”, or distance, of a filtered reality depicted through a camera lens.

It was the day after it happened, and investigators were still looking for bodies. 

A digger was parked by the remains of several crushed vehicles. Bullet-ridden corpses were strewn on the ground like broken bottles after a street fight. The banana leaves on top of them the only available concession to propriety. 

The pockmarked Maguindanao mountain we were on looked as if a giant manic mole had burrowed furiously multiple times trying to find itself the right home.

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on July 2nd, 2010
President Aquino has had an eventful start to his term in office [Reuters]

So the first two days under the much anticipated new government have come and gone, and what a start it’s been.

Newly installed President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino’s first order was to pretty much get rid of all non-career appointees of the previous government.

As heads were still reeling from the whiplash and Filipinos were preparing for the possibility of having the entire administrative structure collapse, the memorandum was recalled and "revised".

It needed to be “fine-tuned”, the new officials explained, as sighs of relief echoed through the emptying government hallways.

The first official presidential order was then reissued with a more detailed definition of who could stay and who would go. 

Then there was the matter of arriving late for the leadership turnover rites at the armed forces headquarters.

No sirens, please

Just as he promised at his inauguration, President Aquino, aka P Noy, remained

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on June 30th, 2010
Photos courtesy of Sunshine de Leon

It's been said often enough to explain the many inexplicable events that take place here; "only in the Philippines!"

But indeed, where else would a presidential inauguration day end with the newly sworn-in leader himself regaling a crowd of thousands with an out-of-tune version of Frank Sinatra’s "Watch What Happens?"

That's exactly how Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, the newly-installed 15th president of the Philippines, capped celebrations in Manila on Wednesday evening - and it was all broadcast live to a hopeful nation.

Let someone start believing in you,
let him hold out his hand,
Let him touch you and watch what happens…

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on June 24th, 2010
Andal Ampatuan Jr is one of 196 people charged over the massacre [Reuters]

The call came in around mid-day.

"They got to him."

I'm sorry?, I thought, still trying to recognise the voice at the other end of the line.

"They got to him,"  it was repeated sadly. "Just as he told you they would."

We were in the middle of working on another story, and I wasn't sure exactly what I was being told.

"The witness," the voice added, filling in my silence. "They got to him, he's dead."

We had interviewed two men who claimed to be witnesses to the Maguindanao massacre, the worst case of political violence in the country that left at least 58 people dead in the troubled southern Philippines.

The first one, known publicly as "Boy", was now in protective custody.

He claimed that he was there when the killings happened, but insisted that he was too shocked at the brutality, and was unable to participate in the shooting of innocent civilians.  

The second one we dubbed "Jesse".

By Veronica Pedrosa in Asia on May 12th, 2010
AFP photo

It's back to the future in the Philippines.

Benigno Aquino III has surfed to the presidency on the crest of a wave of nostalgia for the episodes of more than 20 years ago, when his parents put the Philippines at the centre of world attention.

His mother and father, Benigno Junior and Corazon, were the main characters in scenes that fundamentally changed the course of Philippine history.

I am a "martial law baby" who grew up in exile in London. My parents had managed to get out of the Philippines before Imelda, the wife of Ferdinand Marcos, the late strongman, could have my mother imprisoned for writing a biography of her.

For my generation the shock of seeing Benigno III's father assassinated in a pool of blood on the tarmac of Manila International Airport is a kind of emotional bookend.

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on May 9th, 2010
Photo from AFP

There is a nervous anticipation in the air in Manila – almost a sombre silence. Many fear it could just be a deceptive calm before a storm. 

The Philippines is preparing to go to the polls this Monday, using a new automated system for the first time, and if local surveys are anything to go by, most here are eager to see a change in the nation’s leadership.
 
President Gloria Arroyo has been in power far too long, they say, and many have taken to comparing her to the deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

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