PDP’s ‘none of the above’: The Fifth Column option
Published on Sunday, November 1st 1998 on The San Juan StarI had to look it up. The American Heritage Encyclopedic Dictionary has it as: "Fifth Column n. 1. A clandestine subversive organization working within a given country to further an invading enemy’s military and political aims. 2. Any subversive element working within an organization or institution." I think it is a sad coincidence that the Popular Democratic Party has officially opted, as a Party, to represent and endorse the Fifth Column at the Plebiscite of December 13. Sad because the PDP is the only political party in Puerto Rico today without a philosophical base towards anything much different than just "what is". It is a party without an ideal. Without a mission statement. Its only actual purpose, besides wanting to get back in power, seems to be to provide a niche for politicians who must remain in politics to feel useful. And, of course, status-wise it just wishes to sit on the fence.
What is then the role of politicians within a party that lacks a fundamental philosophical purpose? Among other things: cajole, criticize, and become the administration’s paparazzi. When I was growing up, the Populares came into power not only because there was no overwhelming opposition, but mainly because there were some real titans among them. Titans with ideas. Titans with brains. Titans with a sense of purpose for Puerto Rico. Titans who came up with the imaginative –genial– political remedy of Estado Libre Asociado as a wait-and-see larval stage for a body politic in the making. The genius of Luis Muñoz Marín’s creation, as he himself confided to me one afternoon in his Trujillo Alto porch, was never fully grasped. His words: "If the world had truly understood the ELA, there would be no unaligned nations in the world today." Never, in Muñoz’s mind, would there have been an ELA body politic meant to last forever, nor one that would become disdainful towards the world power with which it became aligned. But, boy, have things changed since! Some Populares are more anti-U.S. today than some of our most rabid nationalists.
The ELA was born in 1957. With that birth, Puerto Rico’s colonial status was given legitimate standing within the United States. Yes, colony, we the U.S. will nurture and protect you until you grow up and decide what to become. Yes, colony, we the U.S. will not cast you adrift unless you yourself choose to drift. Except that the United States never fully admitted before the United Nations that it was still a colonizing empire. The ELA was a legitimate transitory state between the two –and only two– legitimate and ultimate destinies of Puerto Rico: statehood or independence. But current Populares either forgot this, or have never known it.
I find it hard to believe that the Populares have not yet been able to define the ELA since 1957. Not once in 41 years was anybody able to discover what the ELA really was! I find it harder to believe that some still refuse to accept that Puerto Rico’s current status is colonial. It was only two or three weeks ago that they came up with a definition for the ELA to put in the December 13 plebiscite ballot. Then they discarded their own definition and chose to go Fifth Column: a lamentable pun. I find all this intellectually incomprehensible.
I am convinced that there are some intellectually honest Populares committed to finally resolving the status issue. I cannot see how status can be resolved by choosing not to resolve it. The status solution only has two options: statehood or independence. Waiting –or postponing– the ultimate solution should never be an option. Unless you are a politician who has nowhere to go when the status issue is ultimately resolved. Then you have no choice but to postpone, delay, confuse, smokescreen.
There are some who are campaigning to obliterate the opportunity to solve the perennial status issue and would use the December 13 plebiscite to spite Pedro Rosselló. The chip on their shoulders is so huge that it hides Puerto Rico from their view. They can only see their own anger. And, you know what? They can only be angry at themselves because they cannot come up with a better option. My plead to them is: how can anyone morally justify wasting –sabotaging– a status-defining opportunity just out of selfish petty spite against one person? Use the December 13 plebiscite for what it is. Let us finally come to the legitimate terminus of Puerto Rico: statehood or independence. Vent off your spleen against Pedro Rosselló some other way. Puerto Rico’s future is bigger and more important than your spleen. It is even bigger and more important than Rosselló. He just happens to be where he is today, but Puerto Rico will outlive him. You can count on that. On December 13 Puerto Rico’s future should be the only issue, not Pedro Rosselló.
Now Hurricane Georges has become the scapegoat; the political lever. Puerto Rico is still too frail –they say– and the magnitude of federal assistance has been too large, too prominent, and too favorable for us to be able to come to a valid and pondered electoral decision. In fact, Pedro Rosselló’s very own political advisors (that NPP Directorate is sooo clever!) engineered Hurricane Georges’ trajectory as a plebiscite campaign device. Troops, that is baloney at its most childish manifestation. Any thinking responsible Puerto Rican, given an opportunity to express his option towards the ultimate status of his Puerto Rico while in the Intensive Care unit of a hospital, would ask to be given a chance to cast his absentee vote by phone, by fax or by e-mail. Are we so frail and tender and delicate that our powers of decision become clouded to a halt under duress? C’mon!
Yes. Puerto Rico will have a chance to express its ultimate status option on December 13. No, the Fifth Column is not an option. Yes, we did suffer a hurricane. Yes, we are receiving and are yet to receive federal aid. No, the federal aid was not Pedro Rosselló’s doing for political advantage in the plebiscite campaign. That federal aid comes to all American citizens who find themselves in a federally declared Disaster Area. If the PDP has too many misgivings about this, maybe it should campaign on behalf of returning all federal aid if the Fifth Column wins!