MANILA, Philippines -- State coercion has been the standard response of the Arroyo administration to public unrest sparked by allegations of corrupt practices and abuse of authority. It is the same strategy used to suppress sordid details about the canceled $329-million contract with China’s ZTE Corp. for a National Broadband Network (NBN).

The political tempest created by the ZTE scandal has plunged the administration into its most perilous crisis since its near collapse in 2005 following the mass resignation of no less that 10 Cabinet officials. This was prompted by the disclosure of telephone conversations purportedly between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a Commission on Elections official in what appeared to be an attempt to rig the results of the 2004 presidential elections in her favor.

The President again faces another legitimacy crisis as grave as that of 2005 as public protests over the ZTE scandal mounted on Friday in Makati City, reviving demands for her resignation. The Makati rally was the biggest antigovernment protest in years and was conservatively estimated by police to have drawn a crowd of up to 10,000.

It was bigger than the demonstrations in February 2006, when Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim led a walkout of rebellious Marines to join a civilian-sponsored rally in Makati to declare their withdrawal of support from Ms Arroyo, prompting her to declare a national emergency to crush a coup attempt or rebellion.

In response to Friday’s protest, in which there was no military participation, the Department of Justice fell back on the government’s coercive instruments, warning that Cabinet officials who joined the civil society-sponsored Mass at La Salle Green Hills “will be fired.”

The warning is extremely provocative, draws the line on the sand and could spark a mass resignation in the Cabinet -- a contingency the regime does not need. It could pour oil into the flames of rising public outrage over a series of heavy-handed use of police power to suppress evidence on the ZTE scandal being investigated by the Senate.

Last week, the Makati Business Club issued a statement expressing support for Rodolfo Jun” Lozada Jr. and calling on Environment Secretary Lito Atienza and Commissioner on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri to resign. Two days after, another big business group, the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), fired a broadside at the administration, saying it was “compelled to speak out in the face of the frequency of corruption cases and scandals that have been growing in scope and intensity.”

Not in control?

The MAP went further in demanding the President’s resignation. “If the President’s men involved in abuses of authority and alleged anomalies refuse to heed the call for their resignation, should they not be removed from office by the President herself?” it said.

“If the President fails to act, can we conclude that she is either tolerating grave wrongdoing or is not in control? In either case, under the principle of command responsibility, would it be time for all of us to join in asking the President to step down?”

The two statements signal a withdrawal of support of big business from the Arroyo administration. These two organizations represent key players in the business sector, and their breakaway suggests the disintegration of the presidential alliance with the business community.

In October 2000, President Joseph Estrada’s support in the business sector began to crumble when big business organizations issued a joint resolution calling for his resignation in the face of a “jueteng” controversy, a call that now echoes thunderously from the MBC and the MAP.

Stung by the calls and their implication for the survival of her administration amid growing street unrest, the Arroyo administration issued coercive threats to big business. Last week, MBC chair Ramon del Rosario received a telephone call from a Cabinet official who warned: “If you want a fight, let’s fight. We will set the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) loose on you.”

Del Rosario did not identify the official. Trade Secretary Peter Favila told reporters the threat did not come from him.

Presidential guards

The coercive arm of state security forces came into light on Friday when a Senate fact-finding team at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) was shown records revealing the presence of the Presidential Security Group in restricted areas during the kidnapping of Lozada after he arrived from Hong Kong on Feb. 5.

Logbooks at NAIA Terminal 1’s basement security posts showed that a Toyota Corolla Altis carrying PSG officers arrived through the limited access tarmac one hour before Lozada arrived and then left at about the time Lozada was driven away.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Pretoza, PSG chief, denied that the PSG was involved in the abduction. He explained that his men were at NAIA on that day to look into security preparations for the arrival of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo from Europe. The uncanny coincidence of Lozada’s and Arroyo’s arrival was not explained and left to the imagination.

Lozada said soldiers fetched him from the tube, took him to a restricted passage through the departure area a floor up, then down to the tarmac through an elevator, out to the tarmac and on to a drive to Los Baños, Laguna. The trip took more than five hours before he was returned to his family at La Salle Green Hills.

Outrage over abuse

Whether the soldiers, Atienza and senior police officers kidnapped Lozada for whatever reason, Lozada was held for more than five hours without warrant and taken to Laguna for whatever purpose, and security forces were involved in the hijack. This pattern of coercive acts has aroused citizens’ fear and outrage over abuse of police power to suppress the disclosure of evidence pertaining to corruption scandals.

It is easily forgotten that EDSA People Power II was triggered by suppression of evidence by the impeachment tribunal in the trial of Estrada. The current unrest was sparked by attempts to cover up the ZTE corruption scandal with coercive measures. The lid is primed to blow up from the pressure of suppression of evidence.