Failure of elections looms larger with ‘state of calamity’ in Mindanao

Gloria Arroyo’s state of calamity declaration in Mindanao hints at one thing: the government is bent on playing up the power crisis script, thus conditioning the public for a highly probable sabotage of the country’s first automated election in May. Put it side by side with rotating brownouts and sudden technical problems in Luzon power plants last week, and the failure of elections scenario comes into life.

Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes admitted even with the declaration raised in Mindanao, it could still take up to four months before the needed generation sets would be installed, way after the conduct of the elections. To put his words simply, the state of calamity declaration will never avert the looming May polls tragedy, which will unleash the hardest blow to electoral democracy.

Apart from giving the national and local government more freedom in using, perhaps corrupting, calamity funds, the declaration grants the armed forces greater mobility in any nook in Mindanao, which is synonymous to granting the Arroyo regime more freedom to tamper with the power grid in Mindanao in the name of perpetrating itself in power beyond 2010.

Arroyo’s declaration cannot escape this reasonable suspicion, especially since it was recommended by Defense Secretary and National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) Chief Norberto Gonzales, the man who proposed the formation of a “revolutionary government” in June last year as a  ploy for Arroyo’s term extension. Gonzales’s recent recommendation for a state of calamity was granted in less than 24 hours by the President, giving workers and the people all the reasons to suspect that the move serves Arroyo’s hunger for power.

Amid signs indicating Arroyo’s pursuit of her dark plans to remain in power, we reiterate our call for workers and the people to intensify vigilance and collective action. We cannot trust Arroyo’s moves anymore – we have learned that in nine years. #