Must we still fear Gloria Arroyo?

FIRST thing is “why.” Why should the nation be afraid of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?

Better known as GMA during her term--just as Benigno Aquino III was nicknamed PNoy during his--Arroyo was senator, Cabinet member, vice president (10th), president (14th), congresswoman (third-termer), deputy speaker and, since last Monday, speaker of the House of Representatives.

She took power during a coup against then president Joseph Estrada in 2001. Thus the “deja vu” of Filipinos when she assumed as House speaker in another kind of coup last Monday, May 23.

Scandals galore

GMA went through a whole lot of controversies and anomalies, the most scathing of which, the “Hello Garci” scandal of 2005, moved her to say sorry on national television, which would not be easy for any president to make. She conceded to “lapse of judgment” by talking with a Comelec commissioner about a million-vote margin for her in the 2004 elections, all the time insisting she did not cheat. She had promised on Dec. 30, 2002 not to run in 2004 only to break it the following year. Not a reassuring record about moral fiber.

Various incidents of corruption broke out during her term but she was arrested only for electoral fraud in 2011 and for pilfering lottery funds in 2012, causing her hospital detention for about five years. In July 2016, the Supreme Court acquitted her on a vote of 11-4.

She rose to power, held it longer than other presidents except Marcos, and survived mutinies, a weeklong nationwide state of emergency, impeachments (three!), and an unprecedented negative satisfaction rating in 2003 and her last year in Malacañang.

Skilled, equipped

Through her career in public service, GMA has shown she is politically adept, tough in face-to-face skirmish, and devious in behind-the-scene moves. Given the scandals she had been mired in and pulled herself out of, she would be tougher to fight with compared to Pantaleon Alvarez, the speaker she had evicted.

The reason is her own power structure: she has a political base, loyal people in and out of government, and her wealth whose vastness, many allege, is not limited to what she reports in her SALNs.

Many people, particularly those who watched her rise, fall and rise, think she is like the fictional monster that superheroes could not take down and subdue.

The conditions

But look, she is not exactly in her prime: she’ll be 72 next April 5, just a few weeks before the 2019 May elections. Even with her iconic neck brace off, she must still be suffering from some of the host of illnesses she alleged she had in convincing the courts that she had to stay in a hospital room, not in a jail cell.

Look not just at her capacity to influence political decisions but also the current conditions: she barely has nine months, or less than 300 days, before the next elections. Given the reputed slowness of Congress and the several breaks between now and then end of this Congress, she couldn’t do much on legislative agenda. Plus there’s the Senate where some of those on earth who distrust GMA still occupy, senators who might foil the federalism plan that her critics fear GMA would exploit for her future.

She may be not as abrasive, brusque and annoying as Alvarez but GMA still lugs that baggage from which two ghosts keep piping eerily, repetitively, “Hello Garci” and “I’m sorry.”

Part of the glory

Which has made people like Sen. Ping Lacson and former president Noynoy Aquino wonder what is her agenda and which dark place her game plan might lead to.

Maybe she wants part of the glory that Gloria used to savor and enjoy, some sort of redemption. The same compulsion that made her run for congresswoman (the second to do so, after former president Jose Laurel) and seek the deputy speaker’s post.

Many of us resent the make-over attempts: why, she has not even been punished for pretty much of the crimes she allegedly did.

Something good?

And try to do, despite the little time, to help steer us from the economic trouble that many Filipinos, including President Duterte (“in the doldrum”), think afflicts the country.

A master and doctor in economics, GMA, for all the mud she dirtied herself with, was the president who introduced VAT and holiday economics and the fastest economic growth (averaged 4.5%, expanding each quarter). Perhaps she could help. Sun.Star Cebu