A quick thread on where we seem to be. While every ruling coalition will have its fair share of longstanding leaders, it also means a rearrangement of the pecking order.
The faces of the ruling coalition we shouldn’t fail to forget, included a new paramount family. As the hierarchy is reconfigured the ones who do best are those who recognize it and demonstrate they know it.
Each President manages differently but there are types of President and that includes those who freely delegate their powers to those they consider able and useful subordinates. Thus factions are created, and the President had two major ones within the ranks of the old reliables.
Everyone else had to pick sides, between Go and Evasco though in the end one faction from the old reliables won the behind the scenes battle for the soul of the administration, fought out through executive orders.
But there is also another faction, a faction of one: the President’s daughter.
When the Speaker of the House grew drunk with influence and bragged even the President had better watch out as he could impeach him and worse, started to try to exert influence in Davao, she acted.
We know what famously happened, the first time in our political history the selection of a Speaker was done without presidential knowledge or approval. Here it was as much a matter of stabilizing the ruling coalition as it was the elimination of a subordinate (Alvarez).
The alliance that was demonstrated then persisted until Arroyo’s term was up; after that a safe Speaker was selected. But she’s back and it’s here that her methodical style contrasted with PDP-Laban’s bumbling methods for securing the succession.
In the present reshuffle the ones out are the old hands and close lieutenants of the President, as his daughter has taken center stage elbowing aside his advisers and formal party affiliation. Marcos Jr for his part is experiencing what his dad did to Diosdado Macapagal.
Here the two ladies seem to be the political adults in the room, recognizing they have a shared interest in maintaining the ruling coalition’s hold on power without risking an opposition win or just as bad, a Marcos Restoration which would involve settling scores for the Marcoses
At the very least the leverage of the President and his family is restored after being bumbled away by PDP-Laban with sarisfaction of putting Go in his place and forcing if it comes to that a hefty accomodation by the Marcoses. Or if not, taking the wind out of the Marcoses sails
And that’s where we seem to be as of this moment with three days to go before the battle lines are finally clearly drawn.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
As I wrote some time ago, because of a six year presidential term with no reelection and because every administration has a fixed majority for its useful life, when that useful life ends, nearly everyone suddenly becomes opposition, which is why real oppositionists get edged out.
Since administrations more often than not have little effect on who replaces them, their energies are better spent strategically placing people in institutions like the SC to ensure persecution of them is ineffective: GMA was best at this. So-called machinery counts for little.
For #ScholarlySunday a series of links to interesting papers, books, and documents. 1. The passing of Chito Gascon, who was the youngest commissioner, points to this essential reference on the thinking behind our present charter: archive.org/details/record…
What happened: September 21-24 in newspapers. A thread. From Richard Wilhelm Beltran Ragodon. Why Marcos wanted you to forget what was actually happening on Sept. 21-23.
1. September 21, 1972. Manila Times, Taliba, and Daily Express.
What happened: September 21-24 in newspapers. A thread. From Richard Wilhelm Beltran Ragodon. Why Marcos wanted you to forget what was actually happening on Sept. 21-23.
2. September 22, 1972. Reporting what happened Sept. 21, including the rally. Manila Times, Taliba,
What happened: September 21-24 in newspapers. A thread. From Richard Wilhelm Beltran Ragodon.
3. September 23, 1972.
a. The Manila Times*
b. An explanation of how some issues came out before the paper was shut down.
c. The Manila Chronicle*
*shut down by Marcos
Today is the birth anniversary of The Great Dictator who’s enjoying a posthumous rehabilitation primarily through online revisionism. The generations that disowned him have come to discover new generations cultivated to admire him. A thread of readings on what this says about us.
A reflection, on the centennial of his birth, on his life story being the incarnation, in many ways, of his generation's resentments: his success was considered a validation of a particular Filipino way of thinking and doing. quezon.ph/2017/09/11/spo…