| |
HEY
JOE
Arroyo's 200 peso campaign
flier
By Ted Lerner
It is
often said that the truth is relative and to the victor
go the spoils. And nowhere is this more true than in the
Philippines.
 Ferdinand Marcos awarded himself
medals of bravery and thus, by his own volition, became
the most decorated guerrilla fighter of World War II.
Never mind that no US military commander could ever
remember a certain Ferdinand Marcos fighting off the
Japanese. After the war Marcos had some medals made up,
spread the myth of his bravery and, by the time he was
elected president in 1964, everybody believed him.
Joseph Estrada perpetuated an image that he was
one of the millions of Filipino poor when, in fact, his
family had been rather well off. He cultivated his "man
of the people" image by playing those roles in the
movies. Even to this day, Estrada still commands the
adoration of tens of millions of Filipino poor.
Now current President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
has done her predecessors even better. Since assuming
office from Estrada back in January 2001, she has
embarked on a program of spreading her family name by
renaming roads, bridges and public facilities after her
father, former Philippine president Diosdado Macapagal.
Of course whenever the name Macapagal goes up on
a street sign or billboard, it also means Mrs
Macapagal-Arroyo's name goes up there as well. Just what
her public relations machine wants, as the 2004
presidential elections are right around the corner, and
Arroyo is sure to be running.
Her father ruled
the Philippines from 1961-65 but passed away only
recently, in 1997. Philippine law requires that major
name changes to such public facilities as roads, bridges
and buildings get congressional approval. But adherence
to the law doesn't seem to be that important in the
Philippines. Within months of Arroyo's ascension to
power, the Clark International airport inside Clark Base
in Angeles City, which for nearly 70 years housed the
United States Air Force, had been renamed the Diosdado
Macapagal International Airport. No matter that
congressional approval was never given for such a name
change. Overnight street signs within the base were
changed. Even a giant billboard was erected proclaiming
her father's name as the name of the new airport,
accompanied by a picture of a contemplative Mrs
Macapagal-Arroyo gazing up into the skies.
Seemingly everywhere one looks these days
something is being changed over to Macapagal this or
that. A major new street on the reclaimed area in Manila
has just been finished and is named Macapagal Boulevard.
 But name changes on public facilities were just
the beginning. The crowning glory has clearly been the
central bank's issuance of a new denomination of money -
a P200 (about US$4) note. The front of the money
features - you guessed it - a head-shot picture of
Diosdado Macapagal. But the back of the bill is much
more interesting: a drawing of the scene just last year
with Mrs Macapagal-Arroyo taking her oath of office from
the chief justice of the Supreme Court in front of tens
of thousands of people at the height of the so-called
People Power II revolt.
Nearly every sitting
Philippine president has had commemorative money printed
with his or her picture on it. But these were strictly
intended for collectors. The new P200 note is intended
for mass circulation. Five hundred million examples were
recently printed up and they have started to appear in
circulation.
Putting a living president on the
country's currency, and one that was not even elected
and who came to power only a year and a half ago and
under what legally can only be described as questionable
circumstances, is surely highly unusual. A country's
currency is its bedrock, its image before the world.
That's why nearly every country in the world puts
historical figures on its currency, people long dead
whose stature among the populace was elevated years ago
and is no longer under question. If a country's currency
has historical value, it means the economy of that
country has stability. Or so the thinking goes.
The first question regarding this new money,
however, is: did the country need a P200 note? Business
owners don't think so, because their cash registers only
have enough space for the notes already in circulation.
The P200 note will mean that one of the denominations
will have to go underneath the cash-register bin. This
can create confusion and logjams at commercial
establishments.
But the Philippine central bank
(Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas, or BSP) says otherwise. In
answers e-mailed to Asia Times Online, the BSP says the
Philippines needed a P200 note to bridge the gap between
the P100 note and the P500 note. Also because other
places such as Mexico and the European Union have
200-unit denominations.
The BSP also noted that
it wanted a new note to commemorate the country's
independence day of June 12. It was Diosdado Macapagal,
the bank said, who changed the country's independence
from July 4 to June 12. (Although there is no
Independence Day scene depicted on the note.)
But why the depiction of the revolt that took
place only last year? In the Philippines the event is
commonly referred to as People Power II. But rather than
people power, it seemed more like military power. The
several hundred thousand people protesting in the
streets would have gone home hoarse had it not been for
the military deciding to withdraw its support illegally
from the duly elected president, Joseph Estrada. And
Estrada never actually resigned his office, nor has
anyone to this day been able to produce a resignation
letter. Estrada still claims he is the duly elected
president while Arroyo is the "acting" president. The
BSP sees it differently.
"With the EDSA II [the
other name for People Power II] event," the BSP said,
"the Philippines proved EDSA I [in 1986] was not a
fluke, that People Power represents the nature of the
Filipino. The BSP saw fit, therefore, to depict EDSA II
in the new banknote to symbolize two values Filipinos
hold dear: peaceful transition and the desire for good
governance." (EDSA is an acronym for Manila's Epifanio
Delos Santos Avenue, which was at the center of the 1986
People Power revolt.)
The central bank pointed
out that this is not the first time it has featured a
sitting president on legal tender. From 1975 to the
early 1980s, the bank circulated a P5 coin featuring the
late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The coin has since been
demonetized. Anyway, the BSP said, "President
Macapagal-Arroyo was featured only in the context of
EDSA II, not as an independent entity." But still her
picture is on the money and the connotation is that the
event that led to Arroyo's ascension to power is
accepted by one and all. Clearly it is not.
"The
people are polarized," said newspaper publisher Ninez
Cacho Olivarez, a vocal critic of Arroyo. "For 18 months
we haven't been able to see clearly. The mob continues
to claim they were correct." And the new P200 note, she
points out, only serves to further that polarization.
"It's in bad taste," she said. "Here's the
country saying that a coup d'etat is legal. And with a
picture of the chief justice of the Supreme Court as
well? My goodness." Olivarez pointed out that the elder
Macapagal has never appeared on any money before and
that his appearance on the new note seems to be jumping
the gun, as others are more deserving.
"Diosdado
Macapagal is a little ahead of his time," she said. "He
only died in 1997.
"Usually in the Philippines
you give out money if you want people to vote for you,"
she laughed, noting Arroyo's expected candidacy in the
2004 elections. "I guess this is a good way for the
voters to remember you. It's not only a campaign flier,
but it spends."
Olivarez thinks the new note is
just another desperate attempt by the president to shore
up a wobbly base in the ever-turbulent sea of politics
that has marked her year-and-a-half presidency.
"She has very little support," she said of
Arroyo. "If she was doing well, all [her controversial
rise to power] would be forgotten. Will she survive? The
way she's going I don't think so. Jueteng [the
illegal numbers game] is going on like anything.
Smuggling is going on like anything. Crime is clearly
out of control. Only the batch of generals who support
her are enjoying perks like never before."
Recent polls show that Arroyo's support has
indeed dwindled significantly among the populace, even
lower than Estrada's at the height of the impeachment
hearings last year. Whether the new P200 note can turn
things around for her remains to be seen. With her
picture soon to be in everybody's pocket or wallet,
perhaps she and her handlers think everyone will
suddenly be happy to see her hang around for six more
years.
But it is just as likely that the new
money will create more confusion in a populace that can
never seem to come to grips with just what in the world
is really going on in its own country. Take a typical
scene at Manila's most popular mass transit line, the
Metro Rail Transit (MRT), as an example.
The
two-year-old MRT, which carries nearly half a million
passengers a day, was officially opened during the time
of former president Estrada. Because of the cost of
issuing new plastic tickets, the management of the MRT
still issues tickets that have Estrada's picture on the
front. So now you can go to an MRT station in Manila,
pay for a single journey with your new P200 note with
its picture of Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on
one side, and be handed a train ticket that has the
picture of His Excellency Joseph E Estrada on its face.
Indeed in the Philippines the truth is not only
relative, it's extremely subjective.
Ted
Lerner is the author of the book Hey, Joe: A
Slice of the City, an American in Manila. He can be
reached via e-mail at tedlheyjoe@yahoo.com.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
