Nakapanghihinayang ang Baguio

Sa nagdaang dalawang buwan ay dalawang beses akong umakyat sa tinaguriang “summer capital” ng bansa, ang lungsod ng Baguio. Ang unang pagkakataon ay daglian at saglit. Nguni’t nitong nagdaang ilang araw, ako’y nagliwaliw, kasama ang ilang barkada, sa Pagudpud, Burgos, Paoay, Batac, at Laoag City sa Ilocos Norte, kung saan kami ay nanirahan sa naisa-ayos at magandang Fort Ilocandia sa tabing dagat, at pagkatapos ay sa Vigan, na sa loob ng higit labindalawang taon ng pamamahala nina Mayor Eva Marie at Ferdie Medina, ay naging isang kaiga-igayang tourism at cultural destination, habang ang herencia nito sa kasaysayan ay naitataguyod ng maayos. At pagkatapos ay dalawang gabi sa Baguio, upang masarapan naman sa diumano’y napakalamig na klima na tatalunin ang nagdaang mga taon.

Maliit pa akong bata ay sanay na sanay akong umakyat sa Baguio, at sadyang malapit sa aking puso ito. Noong ako’y Grade One pa lamang, naniningil ang aming pamilya sa mga pautang sa mga negosyante doon sa negosyo ng aking lolo, kaya’t buwan-buwan ay umaakyat kami doon hanggang sa magtapos ako ng Grade Two. Noong ako naman ay nasa-High School, taunang may kumperensya at training kami sa Student Catholic Action sa St. Louis University mula Disyembre 26 hanggang Disyembre 30. At dahil doon ay naging ugali ko na, maging ng aking maybahay at mga anak, ang pumunta sa Baguio sa kasagsagan ng tag-lamig doon.

Sa nagdaang mga taon ay nakita ko ang pagkakasira ng Baguio. Noong maliit akong bata, langhap na langhap mo ang mabangong halimuyak ng mga pine trees sa tuwing paakyat ka na ng Kennon Road. Ngayon, ke magdaan ka sa Kennon o Marcos o Naguilian, usok ang iyong masisinghot. Sa Camp John Hay ka na lamang makaka-amoy ng bango ng pine trees, nguni’t paglabas mo doon, papalapit sa dambuhalang kapangitan ng SM mall na dati ay napakagandang Pines Hotel, wasak na ang mga magagandang alaala mo ng Baguio ng aking kabataan.

Lubhang nalugmok sa walang habas na komersalisasyon ang Baguio. Pinabayaan ng mga opisyal, lokal man o mga ahensya nasyonal, na mapariwara ang dating angking sarap ng Baguio. Maging ang Session Road na dati-rati’y kaiga-igayang pasyalan ay naging pangit, masikip, at bulok na. Nagkaroon ng dalawang Baguio --- ang maayus-ayos pang lugar, tulad ng Camp John Hay hanggang Baguio Country Club, at ang bulok na bulok nang downtown, kasama na ang napariwarang Burnham Park.

Noon ako ay nahirang na general manager ng PTA, natuklasan kong ang Burnham ay tinanggal mula sa pag-aruga ng National Parks Development Committee ng Kagawaran ng Turismo at napunta na sa local government unit ayon sa kautusan ni Pangulong Ramos. Dahil dito, nais kong malaman kung may plano ba ang city government na isa-ayos ang makasaysayang public park na ito bago namin tulungan sa pondo, nguni’t ang aking nakita ay mga planong pulos konkreto --- semento dito, semento doon. Matatandaang nagpatayo pa nga ng pine tree na semento sa junction ng Session Road at Leonard Wood, na sadyang nakakasuya. Sa totoo lang, ayaw ko noong tulungan sila dahil nga sa aking pananaw, lalo lamang mapapariwara ang Baguio na noon pa man ay tadtad na sa semento. Dumaan kami sa napaka-trapik na palibot ng Burnham nitong linggong nagdaan, at natuklasan kong imbes na magagandang “period lamps” sa palibot ng lagoon, ay mayroon ng mga plastic lamps na gawang Tsina, kagaya ng pagkapangit-pangit na pinaglalagay sa Kamaynilaan. Sayang.

Ang isa pang sakit ng Baguio ay ang walang humpay na pagdami ng tao rito, hindi lamang dala ng panganganak ng mga dating residente, kundi ang pagdami ng mga “migrants” galing sa mabababang lugar. At hindi ito naisa-ayos o na-plano ng mabuti ng pamahalaan, kaya’t nagsisiksikan at pinagpuputol na walang awa ang mga naggagandahang Benguet pine trees. Talagang nakakaiyak at nakakainis.

Sa aking konting pananaw, mahirap nang baguhin pa ito, at ang magagawa na lamang ay panatilihing maayos ang iilang natitirang magaganda pang lugar, tulad ng John Hay at palibot ng Leonard Wood hanggang South Drive, at kung maari pa sana ay ayusin naman ang Mines View Park na naging pugad ng mga vendors at sirang-sira na. At kung maari pang mabago ang pagkakasira ng Burnham Park, para naman ang masang Pilipino ay may mapuntahang maganda pang lugar sa Baguio, dahil ang John Hay at Country Club ay sa mga nakaririwasa lamang.

Bakit nga ba tayong mga Pilipino, tila walang pagpapahalaga sa mga kagandahang taglay ng ating kalikasan, at wala ring pagpapahalaga sa kasaysayan? Kay lungkot. Nakapanghihinayang ang Baguio.

The winnowing (2)

IN the US of A, there are two mainstream political parties, the Republican and Democratic parties. To be able to properly size up the many candidates who want to be president, they have a series of primaries, where actual elections are held to determine who are the frontrunners before they go into the national convention. Or they may instead opt for party leaders’ caucuses. The party national committees decide the ground rules, and even whether or not to hold primaries at all. Card-carrying party members, or in some states, even so-called independent voters may participate in making known their choice. The parties as well as the states may differ in rules as well as procedure.

The candidates do actual campaigning although most of it is directed at party leaders and workers as well as sectoral groups, with media tracking through polls and immediate reporting of results.

This year’s campaign has been extensively covered by media, specially since there is no re-electionist president, and neither is the incumbent president running for the presidency. It’s a wide and open race in both parties for the nomination of their parties. Convention time is around June 2008, and the states where Obama won, such as Iowa, will cast their delegate quota for him in that convention, just as New Hampshire will go for Hillary. The primaries were thus designed to achieve two things: first, to get to size up the candidates at close range, get their views on various issues, and have a fair assessment of their character; and second, get a feel of the public pulse after the candidates have made their rounds. The nominating convention of the party therefore is fairly assured that their candidate has the requisite competence and character, in varying degrees. It is also reasonably assured that among its following, support for the convention’s choice is strong and enthusiastic. The winnowing purpose is thus well served. In fact, when wannabes fail to clinch sufficient support after two or so primaries, they often opt to quit, and support the frontrunners.

The system cannot be replicated in the country, given as we said, the virtual non-existence of political parties in its real sense. Likewise, the multitude of political "barkadahan" masquerading as parties will make primaries so confusing. Besides, neither government through the Comelec nor the parties themselves are prepared to undertake the expenses involved.

Prior to martial law, when poll surveys were not as much in vogue, party conventions were held to choose the standard bearer. Those were expensive affairs that the Nacionalistas and Liberals had, where delegates were wooed through "wine, women and song" as the Free Press in its heyday loved to describe. They were also opportunities for "transactional" politics. "You support me now, I promise you which cabinet post" was heard several times in smoke-filled "caucus" rooms.

With the death of a true-party system and the scuttling of the monolithic KBL post Edsa I, the poll surveys became the singular barometer of the public pulse. Politics became a "horse" race measured by surveys. Whoever was more popular was deemed "presidentiable" enough. This made the political party even more irrelevant. Thus in the first presidential elections held under the 1987 Constitution, the humongous party of resurrected traditional politicians, LDP, chose in regionally-dispersed conventions Speaker Ramon V. Mitra Jr. over Fidel V. Ramos, who was faring much better in the surveys. FVR and a small band of politicians, seven originals if memory serves me right, bolted the LDP and formed Lakas, which then borrowed the "non-trapo" shell party called NUCD of the late Raul Manglapus. It is now Lakas-CMD.

But the surveys proved themselves more accurate in gauging the public pulse than the traditional politicians. Ramos won with a mere 23 percent of the vote over Miriam’s 21 percent. Miriam invented a party (PRP) for the purpose of running, and she almost won. Danding Cojuangco stole the rib-cage of the Nacionalista Party from then Vice-President Doy Laurel, and re-named his group the Nationalist People’s Coalition. ECJ got 18 percent of the vote. Mitra, who headed the biggest party, with membership down to the barangay level, or so the LDP beamed, was a poor fourth with 14 percent of the vote. Mitra spent the most, Cojuangco next, then Ramos sparsely, and Miriam hardly nothing. Thereafter, surveys provided the best guide to choice.

But in 1998, the now humongous Lakas did not learn the lessons of 1992. It fielded Speaker Joe de V, as if in reprise of 1992, and lost heavily to Joseph Estrada, who romped away with 40 percent of the vote, more than double what the Lakas candidate cobbled. Popularity was the sole determinant of victory over the unpopular who could not be given a make-over. But Lakas imported GMA for vice-president, and she won over Erap’s Angara. Again, popularity won over machinery, where LDP was second to Lakas.

With popularity as measured by poll surveys comes the wherewithal. Because parties do not exist, war chests are personal to the party’s candidate. Thus, the ability to raise money for a campaign has become the function of a candidate’s winnability.

In 2004, the first incumbent to run under this Constitution faced a highly popular movie actor. There were no conventions to choose candidates. Obviously the incumbent who reneged on her word not to seek election only had to retrieve her palabra, and that was it. And the disparate opposition gathered around the personal choice of a few people who were "leaders" by virtue of wealth and previous position. But this time, winnability was thwarted by a deadly amalgam of proper strategy, dirty tactics, shameless use of every fund available, and the co-optation of the Comelec, with its evil genius in residence directing "operations".

In 2010, assuming no machinations to keep Gloria in power beyond succeed, we are looking at a 1992-model political horse race. The protagonists will not have popularity of cinematic proportions, even if former president Erap himself joins the fray. He will not have the virtual presence of an FPJ, straight from movie legend to the presidency. His 1998 stature has been diminished by the real events of his presidency, the impeachment trial, as well as the Sandiganbayan conviction. Which means few of those who dream of Malacañang will give way to him.

But 2010 will no longer be about Erap and what Gloria did to him. It may be about what Gloria did to the nation after Erap, which is more perfidious than any before her. But it would be more about who in a field of many can change the order of things – a rotten polity, a stagnant economy, a society lorded over by the powerful few at the expense of the impoverished many. As elections should always be – to choose the best, gauged in terms of competence and character, the latter being the most important.

How do we gauge these? Sufficient competence, and the needed character to cleanse a rotten polity, to keep the economy moving in the right long-term direction and beyond both boom and bust cycles as well as "plastic" spin, and bring its benefits to the many, protecting them against the unbridled greed of a few, worse, the abuses of the powerful? Character is at the bedrock of political will. "Competence" without character will be more of Gloria.

Again, media and the surveys will play a major role, since the party as institution is more virtual than real.

Between March 2008 and November 2009 when the candidacies are more or less certain, is a total of twenty months. Let civil society, convened perhaps by the PPCRV which stands for responsible voting, and media cooperate towards holding regional forums with a non-rigid debate format in each of the country’s fifteen regions outside NCR. Broadcast should cover the event live and unedited, with nationwide exposure, even international, given our large OFW audience. These could be held each month, for a total of 15 months, the rules and timetable for the organizers to determine. The forum should be held on a Saturday or Sunday, with the candidates allowed to do the rounds of sectors and their target publics the week prior to the debate. No representatives should be allowed to participate. Whether or not a candidate participates is entirely up to him. Remember that we precisely want to gauge competence and character.

No one is declared a winner nor are rankings made by the panelists or the organizers. No quick-polling through text messaging or even scientific designs should be made. Let the pollsters do their regular quarterly surveys, and watch how the nationally televised and reported debates affect public reaction to the candidates.

Meanwhile, media should print matrices of their work experience, professional background, achievements in private and public endeavors, and failures as well. They should inform the public about the candidates’ business ties and relationships, personal or familial. In short, anything and everything that matters when competence and character are to be gauged.

I omitted NCR as a venue, and the organizers could even exclude mainland Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon because almost all households in this wide swath are media-attuned on a daily basis. It is in mega-Manila where they should hold the sectoral fora, which should include labor, the youth and students, farmers and fishermen, the professional sector, business (and I don’t mean Makati Business alone or even in tandem with just the revolving leadership of that troika of PCCI, ECOP and the export council, but also genuinely small businessmen and market vendors). In any case, these are details.

Hence, sufficient ways shall have been made to make the voter choose on the basis of sufficient information. That he chooses more by emotion rather than intellection does not detract from the merits of up-close visual and verbal encounters. He after all chooses by himself where he puts greater premium upon – charisma or intelligence, or whether he finds both in one or the other.

The candidates will in time realize whether they are acceptable or not, whether they have sufficient reason to believe that they are believable by the standards of the voter. Thus, the wide field which now consist of Loren, Noli, Ping, Chiz, Manny, Mar, Dick, Bayani, Sonny, Jojo, Gilbert, either Jinggoy or Erap, or both, and yes, FVR if he desires, could join in when the regional debates begin.

Decision to proceed or quit would of course be an individual one. He could choose to be guided aided by survey findings or his own gut feel.

By the end of 2008 at the latest, after some nine or ten fora, some will have quit. Some may seize the day and propose coalitions with the front-runners, or present themselves even as running mates. My educated guess is that by October 2009, only a few will remain standing. The chaff shall have been separated from the grain, and I don’t mean this to demean anyone. Sometimes the worthier have to give way to the destined. That is how the political cookie crumbles.

Jobama

Adopting the monicker "Jobama" for an accomplished chief executive of the country’s richest city (Quezon City might dispute this, but let me explain that I describe it on per-capita terms), I find rather inappropriate if unseemly.

Jejomar Binay, his first name a contraction of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, has been mayor of Makati, enclave of the very rich, financial capital and fashionable shopping mecca all rolled into one, since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos. But for a brief interlude when he handed temporary power to his wife, Dra. Elenita, when he himself sat as MMDA chair and a member of President Estrada’s cabinet, the people of the city have kept electing him. His second round of three terms each ends on June 30, 2010. Indeed, it is time to move on.

Before Corazon Aquino appointed him officer-in-charge of the country’s then premier municipality, Jojo was a lawyer not of the rich, but of the poor, and together with legal activist Rene Saguisag, embraced human rights advocacies during the long night of the dictatorship. We were together when the first ever anti-Marcos rally in the financial capital rocked the political bearings of the dictatorship in the aftermath of Ninoy Aquino’s dastardly assassination. Unknown perhaps to Jojo then was the fact that I had to bus a few hundred rallyists from his Batangas and my Laguna because we were unsure about any spontaneous turn-out from Makati, then ruled by his predecessor Nemesio Yabut, a loyal Marcos henchman.

Unlike many of the instant local government executives created by revolutionary government fiat, Jejomar Binay proved to be both politically astute and administratively capable. Unlike many who took over their instant constituencies like conquering potentates, Binay retained many of Yabut’s loyalists, in the municipio as well as the barangays. In time, the vaunted political machinery swore loyalty to his colors, even when his rule was challenged by the Yabut heirs.

With so much in real estate and business taxes rolling into the city coffers, he embarked on his own version of a "welfare community," subsidizing so many social services that even Manila, the nation’s capital could not afford. He focused on the basics – health and education, as any right-thinking local executive must. A "yellow card" certifying that the holder is a Makateno, allowed entry at one time to the nation’s most prestigious medical address, the Makati Medical Center. Later, Binay was to put up his own government-run general hospital, apart from well-stocked barangay health centers. The municipality’s schoolchildren had textbook subsidies, and its teachers given increments and bonuses on top of what the national government paid them. In time, he would inaugurate a full-service University of Makati whose educational and even sports facilities are the envy even of some private institutions.

Senior citizens of Makati get to see the movies in Ayala malls for free, chargeable to the city government. And their mayor sends them a birthday cake and some cash gift for Christmas. Makati roads are well-maintained, and I do not refer to Ayala Avenue or the business districts of Legazpi and Salcedo, but even to the poorer districts of Guadalupe Viejo and La Paz and Comembo or West Rembo.

There are many more services that Mayor Jojo gives his pampered constituents which I shall no longer enumerate because, not being a resident of his city, I would only drool with envy, and feel miserable about the state of decay of my beloved City of Manila, once the nation’s pride.

His local detractors certainly have their gripes. They accuse him of corruption, and cases have been filed against him before the Ombudsman. But what local executive has not had his spate of such charges? Of recent memory, Ronnie Puno’s DILG blackshirts laid City Hall to siege because Doña Gloria’s Ombudsman ordered Binay’s suspension for having allegedly padded the payroll with ghost contractuals. Binay’s barangay constituencies surrounded him, and after the Court of Appeals handed down injunction, the "siege of Makati" only provided the mayor with a larger-than-life image as opposition leader. These days, the so-called "United Opposition" coalition is virtually headquartered in his towering City Hall, more fabulously furnished and equipped than any in the entire country. Binay is both president of his original party, PDP-Laban, founded in the early Eighties by now senator, then Cagayan de Oro city mayor Aquilino Pimentel, and the transitory alliance of oppositionists called UNO.

Moving on for Jojo Binay means the presidency of the land. And late last year, he formally declared his intentions, just after Barack Obama won the presidency of the United States. His handlers called him the Philippine version of Barack Obama, but what he had hoped to be an insignia of "change" was trivialized into mere similarity of skin color. By calling their political champion "Jobama," lofty message became little more than, sadly – coffee-shop joke.

The numbers in the surveys show it. Like Bayani Fernando, Jojo, despite real achievements and a busy regimen of moving across the length and breadth of the archipelago, still languishes in the bottom rungs. He has forged sister-city relationships with so many municipalities in so many provinces, donating hand-me-down computers and school desks, but somehow, the effort has not registered in the surveys.

He has publicly declared his fealty to former President Joseph Estrada, and alone among many, has said he would willingly give way to the latter’s intent to make a presidential redux. This makes sense for Machiavellian minds who see opportunity for a vice-presidential candidate of one whose legal rights to seek the office once more may be struck down by the Comelec and the Supreme Court, in which event, No. 2 just might reap instant electoral bonanza. But Jojo, who has shown fierce loyalty to the two political bosses he has served, Cory and Erap, likely means his self-abnegation truthfully.

There is some characteristic that makes the Filipino voter akin to the Filipino movie fan. He typecasts his movie "idols" as much as he typecasts his political "idols". May pang-meyor; may pang-senador. And only a few are considered pang-presidente. (Just like in the movies, where a Baron Geisler like Max Alvarado before him is "pang-kontrabida", while a Piolo Pascual or an FPJ or an Erap could only be the "bida.") Thus, we have had outstanding senators, in erudite advocacy as well as legislative performance – Salonga, Puyat, Diokno, Recto, Tañada, Laurel and many others, but somehow they had been typecast by the voter as "magaling na senador", and would elect them forever if possible, as senators, but not as president. There is a varying background and indefinable charisma required of the top position within the public gift, that had made them elect "electrifying" speakers, or men with military or national security backgrounds – Magsaysay, Marcos, Ramos – or vice-presidents thrust into power by accident of fate – Osmeña, Quirino, Garcia, even Arroyo. Note that all four were neither deeply charismatic nor powerful speakers, and would perhaps not have won against their president in fair elections. We elected Cory Aquino in a wave of sympathy over her murdered Ninoy, and a movie actor with boundless personal charm in Estrada.

It is said that one could plan his political career up to senator, but above that, it becomes a matter of destiny. Quezon and Marcos perhaps defied that. Based on their biographies, it seemed quite evident that they had lusted to become national supremo the day they entered politics. The Filipino voter has not had a mayor or governor typecast as presidential material. The exception was perhaps Arsenio Lacson, mayor of the then truly great City of Manila. But untimely death cut his "destiny" off. Joseph Ejercito Estrada was once mayor of the tiny municipality of San Juan, and was acclaimed for his achievements therein, but people who elected him president in 1998 did so for reasons of charisma and popularity as a movie actor, more than his considerable feats as mayor, and certainly not because of his senatorial performance.

The highly-acclaimed governor of post-martial law Cebu, Lito Osmeña, tried in 1998 as presidential candidate, and failed. These days, there seems to be a growing realization in civil society sectors that there are good local government executives who ought to be considered for the presidency in 2010. Mention has been made of Quezon City’s Sonny Belmonte, even Isabela’s Grace Padaca and Naga City’s Jesse Robredo, Magsaysay Awardees for public service at that, and of course those who have openly declared their intent – Gordon of Olongapo, Fernando of Marikina, and Binay of Makati.

Thus far, the tale of the surveys shows they are not "typecast" by the voters for the presidency of the land. For Jojo Binay, one major problem is that he is titular head of an opposition coalition with many heads who cannot come together to reach consensus that transcends personal ambition. The Liberal’s Mar Roxas, nor Manny Villar’s Nacionalista Party, neither the independent Ping Lacson, or Loren Legarda and Chiz Escudero, oppositionists both in openly pro-administration NPC. Crazy as it already is, the deposed former president, the undeniably charismatic Erap, wants a double take.

Where and how does a Jojo Binay, "Jobama" to his Makati handlers and fans, situate himself thus?

***

While out of town, I got a text message around noon last Thursday from a lawyer-friend regarding a supposed statement from Senator Ping Lacson, who offered to defer to Chief Justice Reynato Puno should the latter seek the presidency, because what the country needs most is a "moral force".

***

I called up the senator, and he confirmed, clarifying that he would defer his own presidential plans only for a man with the moral qualifications of a Chief Justice Puno, and none other. Ping is right. More than anything else, what this benighted land needs is moral regeneration. Otherwise, not only shall we continue to drift; we shall perish.

***

Then, just as I was about to send this article, my friend Oyie Averilla informed me that his grandfather, a man I deeply respect and admire, Gen. Felizardo Tanabe, who preceded Roy Golez and me as postmaster-general, had gone to his eternal rest. A soldier who fought for the country with valiant ardor, and who laid the foundations for a modern postal service, Tanabe will be greatly missed by the postal community, here at home and abroad, among his peers in the Asia-Pacific Postal Union, which he, Roy and I served as secretary-general.

My profound sympathies to his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, particularly Oyie, a young man I also admire, currently the chief of staff of Senator Sonny Trillanes.

The misunderstood “bayani”

There was a time not too long ago when Marikina was backwoods and worse, “raping fields”. Of course it was also the shoe capital of the country where most of our footwear were manufactured, until globalization brought China-made shoes that would sell for half the local production cost.

But the residents of Metro-Manila’s backwoods decided in 1992 to throw away the trapos and their successors-in-style along with their mediocrity, and discovered a civil engineer with a can-do spirit who happened to be the son of a former mayor of the town. They chose to believe in a new hero, literally, a “Bayani” who promised to change the way the whole town would thenceforth move.

And my, how he transformed municipal backwoods into a marvellous city where the streets are safe and well-lit, garbage is collected on time, and the sidewalks free of obstructive vendors, where even trees lining the widened avenues had to conform to their mayor’s own height and width restrictions. Bayani Fernando became sui generis among local government officials in Metro Manila --- an administrative transformer with utmost political will. Marikina River, where salvaged bodies used to co-mingle with garbage, was cleaned and dredged, its banks scrubbed, beautified, and along with what used to be a defunct textile mill, it became a shopping and entertainment centre which not only Mariquenos, but even the uppity residents of Blue Ridge and Loyola Heights would patronize.

To be sure, there was a lot of immediate resistance to this “bayani” with forceful methods. But after months of stubborn persistence where their mayor yielded not an inch, the residents realized that it was best to just follow and obey. Because of their community’s transformation, Marikina residents re-elected Bayani twice, and after him, they would choose no one else but his gracious yet equally strong-willed wife Marides to administer their city. That too was almost eight years ago, and by June 30, 2010, her three terms would be over. Bayani hopes to capture Malacanang and bring Marides with him as First Lady.

In late 2000, when it was made clear to then President Erap that his MMDA chairman, Jejomar Binay, wanted to return to his Makati as its mayor after entrusting the responsibility temporarily to his wife Elenita, there was consensus among Malacanang advisers to draft Bayani Fernando to succeed Binay, even if he was a Lakas stalwart. But Edsa Dos interfered. It was not until Gloria Arroyo realized that her original appointee to MMDA, Ben Abalos, would be better off giving her electoral insurance in the forthcoming elections of 2004, that she decided to tap the services of Fernando. Thus did he begin to replicate his Marikina story in all of the nation’s capital region. The reviews were not as unanimous in praise though.

Bayani has unorthodox solutions, often creative, but controversial too. When he wanted to haul off Metro-Manila’s garbage by railway boxcars to be dumped in far-off Quezon which he would convert into a recycling zone complete with conveyor belts mechanizing the sorting and classifying of recyclables, where paper and plastics factories could be sited, the residents of the province refused to be “humiliated” into a “mere dumpsite” for the detritus of the capital region. Not in their backyard, no way. I personally thought that Bayani’s plan made good sense, but sensibilities constituted a behavioural wall.

He has always held that sidewalks are meant for pedestrians to walk freely upon, unobstructed by hawkers vending whatever. But mayors of Metro Manila have soft hearts and tolerant attitudes towards them --- they likewise vote, after all. Bayani’s boys are often pictured on the television screen as heartless “verdugos” overpowering street vendors and forcibly ejecting them. Again, Bayani may be right, and his political will to uphold law and establishing disciplined order correct, but in a country where emotions always get the better of reason, he has been tarred as some kind of Hitlerian prodigy. Failure to grasp and abide by public sensitivities seems to be Bayani’s Achilles heel, judging from both public and media reactions.

He has converted most of the metropolis’ busy avenues into non-stop throughways by the simple expedient of closing intersections and inventing U-turn sections. And to stop pedestrians from crossing in what used to be junctions, he has built overhead walkways. Again these made sense, yet many still carp, especially at the inconvenience of having to travel 500 or so meters more just to cross to the other side of the avenue.

Even his ingeniously improvised urinals where males could relieve themselves “decently” because covered from public view, were criticized, not the least because of his choice of colour. Indeed, whatever he built, from urinal to overhead walkway to delineating traffic fences and signages, he painted with his signature pink. He defends his choice of colour by saying he wanted the metropolis to exude “pinkness of health”, but hey, that’s not baby pink --- it’s closer to screaming fuchsia. Colour seems to be such a trifle, but those who dislike Bayani need something to chew on, and they are legion, if we go by surveys even in Metro Manila.

Yet the man is unfazed. He believes that discipline and order are key to the nation’s progress, and he is right. But somehow he does not connect properly with the voting public, and despite tarpaulins proclaiming “kaayusan” together with his unsmiling face ubiquitously strewn all over the region --- and beyond, his survey ratings remain dismal. He has even parlayed his karaoke baritone into a text-driven victory as singing champion in a major television network show, all for high national awareness and hopeful conversion into higher ratings. He is certifiably an original stalwart of Lakas, the political party which has been declared by the Comelec as the dominant majority party for four consecutive elections, but the same party has not seen it fit to proclaim him its champion for 2010, and seems to be hedging its bets, looking for turncoats to carry their transactional flag of convenience. It isn’t fair to loyal Bayani, and tells you something about the crazy political system we harbour.

So, should Bayani Fernando persist in his presidential quest? In a recent one-on-one meeting., I asked him if he had other options, but he is fixated on the presidency. “I would be ill at ease as senator”, he said, adding that “I am a doer, not a talker”. Well, Ping Lacson also said that before, but he is a senator twice-over, and has performed well as such.

The dynamics of presidential contest requires that action is both demonstrable and convincingly articulated, and until Bayani gets the right formula for connecting with the voter, he may have to reasonably bide his time elsewhere. This is sad, because no matter what his detractors say, this writer believes that Bayani, or “Bayan”, as his beloved Marides calls him, has most of the attributes that would make for a good chief executive of the land. Compared with some who have no track record as manager, other than a surfeit of communicating skills, the nation would probably be better off with unorthodox but determined doers like Bayani Fernando.

Politics unfortunately is the art of the possible, and possibilities are adjudged in the benighted land by the probabilities outlined in survey results.

* * *

We wish to extend our profound condolences to the family of Dona Maria Marcelo vda. De Ejercito, mother of President Joseph Estrada and Dra. Pilarica, Atty. Pauli, Mrs. Pat de Guzman, Ma’am Marita, and my close friend Jesse, as well as their respective families. Four of Dona Mary’s children preceded her in the great beyond ---Connie, Emilio Jr., George, and Antonio.

Even if she died after a long 103, almost 104 years, President Erap and his siblings must be utterly devastated at the loss. The death of a mother is always the most painful. We can always rationalize that she is now in the company of the angels and saints, and say that mercifully her physical sufferings are over, but I can only sympathize with Dona Mary’s family as they grieve, especially with President Erap, who, even when he was languishing at the Veteran’s Memorial, would himself lovingly prepare the food that he would regularly send to his mother. Such devotion will find it difficult to cope with the realization of loss, no matter how long expected.

Ave atque vale, Dona Mary.

Loren’s ‘sinta’ for 2010

The papers scream about the insidious plans to impeach Chief Justice Reynato Puno, using as excuse his alleged withholding of the promulgation of a decision penned by mercifully retired Justice Ruben Reyes on the disqualification case filed against a Negros Oriental congresswoman of Chinese extraction. The Chief Justice noted that nine of the fourteen justices who concurred with the ponencia agreed on the conclusion, but not the reasoning behind the decision. As chief steward of the nation’s judicial system, Puno thought that the doctrinal value of Supreme Court decisions would be questioned by the legal community if he allowed such to pass, and therefore prudently withheld promulgation.

Quickly, Malacanang’s evil geniuses saw an opportunity to torment Puno. They are now laying the predicate to his unceremonious ouster. As I have always maintained, this evil governance that bedevils our future, will always seek ways and means to further its illegitimate hold on power. The latest assault on the integrity and independence of the Court is but one of them.

Still, on the assumption that we will have regular elections, no matter how flawed in a system that sucks, we resume our articles on those who would want to take their chances on the presidential plum of 2010. We have written about former President Joseph Estrada first, and then Senator Richard Gordon. Now we feature Senator Loren Legarda.

She started as a beautiful newsreader in the country’s top television network. With perfect diction and reportorial aplomb, she advanced quickly, and later even hosted a relevant tele-magazine program that dissected many of the country’s ills, which allowed her to empathize with her news subjects all over the land.

She was drafted by Lakas to run as senator in 1998, and soon became the top attraction in an otherwise lacklustre ticket headed by Speaker Jose de Venecia as its presidential candidate. De Venecia was a virtual loser to the popular Joseph Estrada even before the campaign began, the Erap’s only worry being his opponent’s potential for electoral manipulation as FVR’s chosen successor. It was left to the popular Loren to attract the crowds more than the Lakas standard-bearer could hope to. Together with a catchy campaign jingle adapted from a Filipino folk song memorized by every child in the land, “Loren-Loren Sinta” quickly zoomed up in the surveys, and indeed, she topped the senatorial line-up even if her presidential candidate lost rather miserably to Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

She became the first female Senate majority floor leader, and acquitted herself in the post. She became an advocate of environmental issues, which has become her signature cry through the years. One of the most memorable episodes in her first Senate term was her tearful reaction when the majority of senators refused in a vote to open the second envelope in the impeachment trial. It became a poignant contrast to Tessie Aquino Oreta’s celebratory jig, which curiously, even the Erap loyalists did not take it against her when she joined up with FPJ three years after, even if that heart-tug scene signalled the abrupt end of the rule of Estrada. The Filipino’s attention span is really something to marvel at. The ability to quickly forget transcends its ability to forgive too easily.

In the presidential elections of 2004, she was chosen by a group of political leaders to run with the king of Philippine movies, Fernando Poe Jr., as his vice-presidential running-mate. She left her original party, Lakas, and joined a hastily-formed coalition called Nagkaisang Pilipino. The incumbent de facto president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in turn handpicked her previous colleague in the news-reading profession, radio and television broadcaster turned Senator Noli de Castro.

It is widely believed that the presidential elections of 2004 was the worst case of election result manipulation in our political history, punctuated by the revelation of “Hello Garci”, the voice tapes where Gloria was heard conspiring to pad her votes with an election commissioner, Virgilio Garcillano. The cheating episode also created mayhem to the military’s code of honour, with the supposed participation of the “Garci” generals in making GMA win. Whether Noli also cheated Loren, or was a beneficiary of Gloria’s cheating, we will perhaps never know conclusively. Loren went to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal to contest Noli’s proclamation, but when the same had not yet been resolved by the Court, she decided to run for her old Senate seat with the so-called Genuine Opposition, once more a hastily-formed coalition for the elections of 2007. And again, she made it to Numero Uno.

In the afterglow of her second senatorial triumph, the first presidential survey reading likewise gave her the highest marks, with Noli de Castro and Ping Lacson following her. Manny Villar and Mar Roxas were way behind the lead three. But a constant barrage of expensive television advertising gained subsequent higher ratings for Villar, dislodging Loren and reducing Ping’s numbers. Noli de Castro, apart from being the vice-president, is likewise a constant boob-tube and radio presence through advertisements of Pag-ibig’s low-interest housing loans. Snapshots that they are, surveys merely indicate top-of-mind presence at this point. Erap’s entry into the race further muddled the snapshots, and with his immediate emotional tug with the masa, the numbers of other oppositionists were likewise shaved. Chiz Escudero must also have stolen some of Loren’s voter appeal, as he did Ping’s.

Able to scrounge some funds, Loren came up with a 15-second advertorial repeated twice within a 30-second time slot, this time decrying corruption as causing poverty. Whether this departure of focus from environment to corruption is enough to convince many more to hearken to her presidential colours, or whether it’s lesser frequency in comparison to Villar and De Castro’s could repair the slide, remains to be seen. Suffice it to establish that today’s numbers are really not that indicative of ultimate voter preferences.

This is not to say that early survey ratings are not important. They are. Early lead means catching the interest of moneybags, and the entry of pump-priming political contributions. The unfortunate reality of Philippine campaign financing is that it is not congruence of advocacies or commitment to shared principles, but the llamado culture that prevails. Campaign financing in this country is akin to gambling, with big business betting their money in the hope that with their manok’s political victory comes access to regulatory and even monopoly privileges. The history of great fortunes in this country is replete with examples of campaign contributions capitalized into economic power. The Filipino’s sense of utang na loob, a private virtue as generosity, has become ingrained as public vice --- into payback.

One wonders whether Loren’s new role as chair of the agriculture committee can translate into greater appeal to a sector that in most part is susceptible to local command. But it could make good advertising copy, with nice rural backgrounds, if she can get the money to buy air time.

While Loren is a pleasing face in Philippine politics, one likewise wonders whether the electorate could sufficiently warm up to the prospect of another woman president after nine years and a half of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. This is not being sexist; this is merely conjectural. Neither can any presidential contender attack womanhood as being unfit for another crack at the presidency after the dismal, rather, woeful reign of the country’s most disliked president, bar none else. Loren after all, is certainly not Gloria, and whatever similarities the two may have, probably remained at the Assumption Convent where they both schooled. In the 1991 pre-campaign period, the same “none of the above” situation obtaining these days seemed to prevail. And those who were disillusioned with the sense of drift in Cory Aquino’s leadership also said “not a woman president again”. But they did not reckon with Miriam Defensor Santiago, who captured the imagination of many with her anti-corruption imagery. She almost made it in 1992, running virtually alone, in a makeshift party whose name no one now remembers. Loren and her husband, former Batangas governor Tony Leviste, enlisted themselves in the Miriam “crusade”. One wonders though whether Loren could credibly sound like Miriam then, and likewise, whether people who would vote for Miriam to remain in the Senate --- forever if possible, would want her type as president of the land.

The number of players will of course matter. While none but a Pollyana can dream of the so-called “opposition” uniting behind just one candidate in 2010, a reduced number should accrue some benefit to La Loren’s chances. She is after all, the only female candidate in the field, an advantage she could turn to her advantage, a la Miriam in 1992. But again, Loren is no Miriam, both in flourish of speech or fire in the belly.

Should Loren therefore re-invent her public persona? Should a sweet, girl-next-door public persona which proved to be box-office hits for two senatorial runs be discarded because a presidential run, rightly or wrongly, requires a make-over? That is for her handlers to fathom.

The politically street-smart Erap fired a shot to her bow when he publicly wished before Christmas to have Loren as his running-mate, just like FPJ. Her initial reaction was to politely deny his overtures with a “been there, done that” remark. Yet that said, she joined Erap the day after in his occasional gift-giving sprees, his usual show of endearment to his masa, belying polite rejection and opening up to the probability. Or, if she or her handlers are as Machiavellian as one could imagine, it could be their way of showing her new NPC ka-rancho’s that she could also play the field, if their intent is to make her just number two to junior Escudero.

La Loren is being practical. If Danding Cojuangco’s NPC, of which she has been a member only since 2007, shows partiality towards Chiz, whose membership in that party dominated by transactional politicians is original, she could always hie off to the warm welcome of Estrada. After all, Estrada, in the context of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is certifiably opposition, while the NPC and Danding are neither here nor there, neither fish nor fowl in the political equation, drifting whichever way is more financially advantageous.

As 2009 unfolds, Loren Legarda might have to go back to the drawing board, or simply wait in the wings for the assorted competition to take a stock of their own chances and perhaps wither in the political wind. She will have to shore up her pre-campaign wherewithal at a time when the moneybags have reasonable excuse to be reticent. One year, after all, is a long, long time in politics.

The awesome powers of Mr. Ermita

In the last mid-term elections, there was only the non-vote in Maguindanao that proved to be a cliff-hanger in proclaiming the twelfth "winner" for senator of the realm.

That it eventually became Juan Miguel Zubiri of Bukidnon over Koko Pimentel of Cagayan de Oro showed how choosing between two Mindanaoans became all too easy for the province of Maguindanao. After all, no elections are held in that most benighted of all the provinces of this benighted land. It was only who Ampatuan chose, and whose "votes" Lintang Bedol counted. The Comelec in Manila, corrupt as it is to the core, was reduced to mere toadies of Ampatuan and Bedol.

But there were two cliff-hangers in the local elections that caught national attention. One was the shameless withholding of the proclamation of the winning Len-Len Alonte as mayor of the municipality of Biñan in my native Laguna. Only because her protagonist was the son-in-law of the now hopelessly disgraced Benjamin Abalos, chairman of the Commission on Electoral Cheating.

The other was the refusal of the same Comelec to proclaim a clear winner in the vice-gubernatorial race of the neighboring province of Batangas. Leading by close to 19,000 votes, Mark Leviste had to agonize for 48 days after election day before the Comelec finally acceded to his proclamation, almost on the last day provided by our Constitution for changing officers. Why? Because he made the mistake of challenging the obsession that the right powerful Eduardo Ermita, executive secretary of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which was to have his son Edwin, previously rejected by the province, finally become prinsipito ng Batangas.

But once more the people of Batangas rejected his son Edwin, despite massive resources, and running with the immensely popular Vilma Santos. By a lead of 18,600 votes and post-electoral magic notwithstanding (Namfrel credited him with a projected bigger lead before it stopped its canvass), Leviste trounced the son of the ex-general, ex-congressman, ex-DND secretary and now Gloria’s right hand man. Which Edwin’s old man could not accept. How could he allow his son to lose in his province, he who is primus inter pares in the cabinet of Doña Gloria, conseilleur sans pareil of the Boss Woman misma?

And so Benjamin Abalos and Resurreccion Borra dutifully stopped the proclamation of the winner, until time ran out on their schemes. Media focused on the obvious abuse of power where Ermita’s son and Abalos’ son-in-law were losing and could not accept honorable defeat.

In the case of Biñan’s Alonte, an extraneous incident occurred after the elections. Joey de Venecia blew the lid on Yatco’s father-in-law’s indecent participation in the scam of the decade, a national broadband deal done in the boudoirs of Shenzhen. The father-in-law decided finally to take the rap for deal so grossly overpriced, and resigned in shame from the Comelec which at his helm became so grossly disgraced as well.

But in the case of the harassed Leviste, Resurrecion Borra assumed temporary chairmanship. And he is likewise the chair of the first division of this quasi-judicial body. And after the resignation of Abalos, an unknown called Moslemen Macarambon suddenly erupted into the scene, appointed by Mr. Ermita’s GMA, and assumed the seat vacated by Abalos. That’s when the first division suddenly marched to the tune of the piper ensconced in the stinking palace beside the stinking river.

To be sure, the amazingly power-obsessed Mr. Ermita took in a youngish lawyer learned in the arts of Garcillano and Roque, they who would have elevated the art of cheating into an exact science, had not Garci’s indecent conversations broken his spell. This election operator who gives the legal profession the slimy reputation it has been of late associated with went into action and operationalized a scheme which was used in the 2004 electoral case filed by Sonia Torres Aquino against the duly-elected Mayor Corona of Tanauan, also in Batangas. It worked then, aided by bagfuls of money delivered to the right hands in Intramuros. How could the scheme not work where Intramuros marches to the tune of Malacañang, and the piper is the second most powerful man in the land (with apologies to Atty. Jose Miguel Arroyo y Tuason, of course)?

So Leviste won by close to 19,000? Easy. First, file the protest, and make sure it gets to a division with members willing to cooperate or easy to pressure. Next, get the willing treasurers and the willing mayors of a few municipalities to open the ballot boxes in their stewardship, and get the operators to switch the real ballots with fake or spurious ones. So, when the ballot boxes are opened by the Comelec once the revision process starts, the sly operator-cum-lawyer shouts "Voila!, No wonder Leviste won. His ballots are fake, and that’s what the ER’s counted." A dutiful Comelec will then void the fake ballots, and Leviste’s lead gets erased in no time. Neat!

But something like this could only be effected if cooperative mayors and their treasurers are co-opted. No problemo! Para que estamos en poder, nan desu ka? Papa is in Malacañang, ano ka?

And you would need the Comelec to cooperate likewise. No problemo! Macarambon, Garci’s fraternity brod, was appointed by certification of the Executive Secretary, and will need to be re-appointed and re-appointed because the Commission on Appointments will keep questioning his sparse and dubious credentials time and again. Papa is in Malacañang, ano ka? As for Borra, wasn’t he cooperative in May and June, 2007? Surely Papa knows the secret ways to get him to cooperate even more. Perhaps an ambassadorship to Timbuktu? Or a juicy directorship in some government corporation after he retires in February? Leave it to the amazing powers of Mr. Ermita.

And so, magically, Number 32 in a docket of 35 cases assigned to the first division suddenly becomes top priority! Why not go by the order in which the cases were elevated to their attention? "That’s the discretion of the Comelec", was the curt reply. What Ermita wants, Ermita gets.

And then, the same Comelec waived a pre-condition they always insist upon when it comes to protests. Even if the protestant Ermita had yet to fully pay the required revision fees of P4.8 million, they started revising last November 27. Iba na ang malakas!

Now the young Leviste gets to feel the amazing, awesome powers of the father of Edwin. Even in Sto. Tomas from where the Leviste clan hails, his lead of almost 10,000 votes is in danger of being wiped out by an avalanche of fake ballots surreptitiously stuffed inside the ballot boxes. Who’s the mayor of Sto. Tomas? Why, the wife of his gubernatorial candidate, mismo! Talagang matindi ang Ermita.

The second most powerful man in Philippine officialdom is who the young Mark Leviste is up against. The awesomely powerful man bows only to women. First his Boss Woman, but naturally. And an Iron Lady whom Batanguenos call aptly "Thatcher" who comes from a Cebuano-speaking province in Mindanao. And another whose name is only whispered about. She comes from another Southern province, where they speak in a languorous, mellifluous cadence similar to Rolex Suplico’s sing-song. Wasn’t she a school mate, Rolex?

Kawawang Mark. Kawawang Batangas.

I used to work for Doy Laurel, and was impressed particularly by impression by the honorable battle-honesty by which they fight their contests. They may womanize, some may steal even, some are STL and jueteng lords, but cheat in elections, no way. Why, their forebears almost rose up in arms when one of their own, Jose P. Laurel, was cheated in national elections in a province called Lanao, where the "birds and bees" voted.

But birds and bees have become obsolete. All you need these days are smart, immoral and amoral operators, fake ballots, and the concupiscence of election officers. But all these can only be triggered when you have lots of money and lots of power. As I said earlier, "no problemo." Papa is the second most powerful man in the officialdom of a country where cheating and lying and stealing are "normal" and "accepted."

What the difference a Dick makes

It just occurred to me that our first article for the year was printed on the fete of the Three Kings, better referred to as the Magi. Appropriate that we begin thus a series on those who would want to be president of the land. Whether they are kingly, or wise, we should all discern. But whether the one who our 40 or so million voters eventually chooses shall, as has been its wont, the least among us, is just another political event in the hopelessly transactional system by which we are governed in this benighted land.

Someone who is certainly not among the least in competence and track record is the subject of today’s article. Whether he could make it in 2010 or not is something else, however.

Yet, lawyers as well as laymen who watched the proceedings of the committee investigations of the Blue Ribbon under Sen. Richard Gordon cannot help but compare the new chair’s performance with his predecessor, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.

While the latter seemed no more than a master of ceremonies cum timekeeper, Gordon allows fellow senators to complete their line of questioning, and is thus able to evince purpose and direction to the investigation. The listener is not bored by repetitive questions, where one senator, absent when another was using up his three minutes, would pop up the same questions all over again. His lawyerly skills are evident, and he gets the committee staff, basically no different from those he inherited from Cayetano, always on their toes. What takes Cayetano 10 hours of tiresome drag, Gordon achieves in 3 hours, with better conclusions. The new chair seeks out his resource persons, and through a combination of sleuthing and public bluster, he gets them to appear in the Bolante-starred hearings on the fertilizer scam. Contrast this to how his predecessor failed to get Ben Abalos’ gang of four, Jimmy Paz, Ruben Reyes, Quirino de la Torre and Leo San Miguel on the dock. The last, San Miguel, appeared after he was sought by Ping Lacson whose privilege speech started the investigation on the ZTE-NBN mega-deal. Unfortunately, San Miguel was evasive and clearly tried to cover up both his participation and that of higher personages in the stinking effort to make billions at public expense.

Gordon is able to steer the committee hearings towards discovering the bits and pieces of truth out of the prevarications of main witness Jocjoc Bolante, the alleged architect of the scam. And although he is identified with the administration, having run together with GMA in her controversial 2004 election, he now shows independence and purposive ardour in search of the truth behind the scam. Dick’s stewardship of the Blue Ribbon Committee makes for a positive difference.

Which in retrospect is how Gordon’s public service career has been. Early on, he was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1971, whose work was caught up by the declaration of martial law. With the murder of his father, then mayor of Olongapo City which along with the town of Subic hosted the then sprawling American naval base, Dick entered politics in earnest. He made quite a difference, and established order as well as a sense of discipline in what was then largely the nightly R and R locus of military servicemen.

In the wake of the Philippine Senate’s rejection of the treaty to extend the life of the military bases, it fell upon Gordon to never say die. The withdrawal of the American military, which likewise provided livelihood to most Olongapo residents, coincided with the sudden eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, a major disaster that affected the economy and safety of half of Central Luzon’s residents. Dick paved for an orderly transition, as Filipino volunteers he organized prevented the kind of looting that happened when the Americans left neighbouring Clark Airbase. Like the Ateneo cheerleader that he was, this time Gordon cheered his constituents and egged them on despite the immediate dislocation wrought by the closure of the military facilities. He then cajoled Congress into passing a law that gave the former naval base administrative autonomy, and proceeded to entice investments to give economic utility to the war infrastructure the Americans left.

When Joseph Estrada took over as president in 1998, Gordon was immediately replaced by Bataan’s Felicito Payumo, and in 2001, in the aftermath of Edsa Dos, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed him Secretary of Tourism, there to use his management skills to try to give life to a moribund tourism industry bedevilled by the peace and order perceptions brought about by the depredations of the Abu Sayyaf. Once more, the never say die attitude of an Ateneo cheerleader turned gloom into the beginnings of recovery. The tourism department is an oasis of relative success in the otherwise parched desert of GMA’s misgovernment, thanks to her inspired appointment of Gordon, followed by Cebu’s Joseph Ace Durano thereafter.

Gordon parlayed his high profile stewardship of tourism into a Senate election in 2004. And now, just more than a year before he faces re-election or as he hopes, advance his political career towards something higher, he has been gifted by his peers with the high-profile post of chairman of the Committee on Public Accountability, better known as the Blue Ribbon. And once more, what the difference a Dick Gordon makes.

His presidential ambitions are not as welcome to the population though, as gleaned from his low-end survey results. While this space believes that Dick has the track record and the qualities that make up strong political will that is perhaps something this nation needs most in these regressive times, his numbers must improve before he is given a second look by funders and political leaders.

He has been trying to build some kind of a civil society network through the Philippine Red Cross which he chairs. He is quite visible when disaster strikes, not a put on for presidential posturing, because he has been doing this even when he was a mere city mayor, bringing relief to disparate places struck by calamities. Despite these efforts, Gordon has to touch the Filipino’s emotional heartstrings, in a nation where voters think with their hearts more than their mental faculties.

Likewise, he brings little by way of political advantage to a presidential candidate, if he should decide to scale down his 2010 ambitions to the second post. He has no party, even if this space acknowledges that parties have extremely marginal value and have been demoted to mere flags of convenience. His territorial bailiwick is small, and constitute part of mega-Manila where command votes hardly exist. Yet I must admit that these are all trite political assumptions, and every presidential contest is like no other. The best argument that indeed, challenging the usual can succeed is the smashing triumph of one Barack Hussein Obama. This is a challenge that many in the Philippine political arena will perhaps hope to hurdle, and Dick Gordon dreams on, like the Ateneo cheerleader that his persona typifies.

But as senatorial re-electionist, Dick Gordon, the way he has been making quite a difference, should be a shoo-in, especially now that he heads the Blue Ribbon in an administration that will never run out of political scandals and corrupt goings-on.

* * *

Lying has become the national sport. And it is peddled live on national television, each time a congressional investigation unfolds.

In the “Alabang Boys” hearing, you marvel at the ease with which DOJ officials and lawyers prevaricate. Of course, no one beats Jocjoc Bolante, who must have rehearsed his lines during the two years he was in the Kenosha County Jail, instead of reading books. The palace spokespersons lie at the drop of every hat. Why, Dureza even crows about a supposed “Bloomberg report” about the country, along with China, being Asia’s most economically resilient, thanks to his Boss Woman’s economic expertise. He, he, he --- his source turns out to be a chimera called in by “super-truthful” Mike Defensor who claimed to have watched television in his hotel suite in Hongkong, or was it Macau?

Clearly, it’s a case of follow the leader, except that it has gone beyond just her cabinet officials, and lying has infected almost everybody in this land.

* * *

A friend and colleague in previous government service, Atty. Rolando Ramirez, recently died after a delicate brain surgery. He will be laid to rest today. We mourn for his loss in this valley of the benighted, and hope his children will take comfort in his being now in the valley of eternal rest.

The Hamlet act

Quoth the Bard of Avon, “To be or not to be, that is the question” in his well-read Hamlet.

Quoth Joseph Ejercito Estrada, dispossessed 13th president of the Republic, “To run or not to run, that is the question”.

The question of course, persists only in the public mind, as Erap’s propaganda insists. The ostensible reason behind a run is the threat that if the opposition does not unite, he himself will run. Anybody with two cents worth of political experience knows that the opposition is not going to unite behind one candidate in 2010, and Erap’s premise is ipso facto and ab initio defunct. And the man knows it, but, “just like in the movies”, he has to dissemble.

He has increasingly made his decision to run known to almost every person he has privately talked with. He has moved around the country, in what he bills as “lakbay-pasasalamat” meanderings, because he is “giliw na giliw” with his adoring masa, and the curious throngs that greet him are in turn spun off as “sabik na sabik” for the return to the presidency of the fallen leader. But for the fact that he is not FPJ, an entertainment columnist could as well call an Erap redux as “Ang Pagbabalik ni Panday”. It would be well nigh political sacrilege, at least for this writer, to call it “Ang Pagbabalik ni Asiong Salonga”.

Lately, the private intent has become more publicly disclosed. Already Erap has floated his first choice of a running mate in Senator Loren Legarda. This of course is more reaction than pre-emptive action. A week or so before his announcement of preference for Loren, the NPC under Ambassador Danding Cojuangco pre-empted him by announcing in its Christmas get-together that they would field a complete slate in 2010, from president to a 12-man senatorial slate, down to the local candidacies. And to head their team would be Francis Escudero and/or Loren Legarda, preferably a team-up of both. The “both” is likely if Chiz agrees to be Loren’s number two; vice-versa, the lady would not agree. Chiz is quite “junior” in Loren’s political esteem, and confronted even by an Erap public offer, the lady insists that she’s “been there, done that”.

Jojo Binay assumed that he would be Erap’s running-mate as the UNO president and Erap’s loyalist sans pareil. Of course, his survey numbers are nowhere as close to Loren’s, at least for the moment. And Erap boys have been openly talking about an Erap-Chiz tandem, except that Danding, who is naturally closer to Chiz than Erap could ever hope to be, put his foot down early on. Which is likely why Erap mused out loud that Loren is “his” preference.

Indeed, Loren was FPJ’s running mate, and insists she too was garcified out of electoral victory by the Gloria-Noli tandem in 2004. She protested all the way to the Supreme Court, but the politics of being in the public eye required her to run for the Senate in 2007. She was Numero Uno, and Chiz was Numero Dos. The impact of their victories still reverberate in the surveys of presidential preferences in 2008.

But then, enter El Erap. After a series of mega-Manila warm-up tours, complete with a campaign truck from which he and his Manong Ernie Maceda shower candies at the children of the gathering lumpen, 1998 style, his name was entered into the surveys by mid-2008. And as expected, he shaved off points from the other presidential wannabes. Three to five points from Noli and Ping Lacson as well, a whisker or two from Chiz and Mar Roxas, hardly any from Manny Villar that his money and his advertisements could not cover, but a decidedly big slice off Loren’s early lead.

To lay his legal predicate, Erap commissioned (hired is not a politically correct term) retired justices and legal luminaries to reason that he is not covered by the constitutional provision against “any” re-election. I will leave it to the lawyers to debate in the meantime whether Erap’s legal legs are straight or squat.

In any case, the issue will not be before the bench and with the barristers until Erap files his certificate of candidacy, which is at least 90 days before the elections of May, 2010, if at all. The first bench to hurdle is the Commission on Elections, on the proper assumption that someone will go before it to question the validity of his candidacy. If the Commission should decide that Erap is not qualified, then Erap appeals to the highest bench of law.

Meanwhile, the focus of the campaign of 2010 will shift from the “others” and their “platforms and programs”, if any, to the courtroom drama, first before the Comelec, and then to the Supreme Court. Exactly as Erap would want it. It allows him to play underdog, his and the late FPJ’s favourite script in their action movies, “aping-api” throughout the movie, until they prevail against the bad guys in the end. “Tagumpay!” sa takilya, and “just like in the movies”, so also in politics. This has always been Erap’s electoral praxis anyway.

Conveniently, there will be no time for debates (as usual), and this time, apart from the hectic campaign schedule, there is the “inconvenience” of being hobbled by the legal conundrum. Meanwhile, the other candidates are deprived of prime time, as Erap reprises his favourite act. And I can read the script this early. Ninakawan ng tagapagtanggol ang masang Pilipino ng ninakaw kay Erap ang pagka-pangulong handog sa kanya ng masang Pilipino. The script then segues into the “conspiracy” of the elite, whose interests were threatened by an Erap presidency that “refused” to give in to the demands of the elite at the expense of his adoring masa. So…”ibalik si Erap”, the “people” chant.

Erap’s re-run scenario expects all these to convert into high survey ratings, enough to eclipse his opponents, and enough to convince the high tribunal to debate and tarry, rather than decide abruptly on what could be a political issue more than an open-and-shut constitutional interdict. If the justices, all of whom but for the Chief will have been appointees of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should decide to tarry, then Erap hopes that the hordes of the masang Pilipino shall have made their vox populi clear enough to make the issue of qualification moot and academic.

All very fine in Erap’s mind, as well as his handlers. Except for a few things, principal among which is the single most important question a prospective candidate has to personally hurdle --- who foots the bill? And in an Erap political extravaganza, with Erap as the lead actor, this is always an expensive proposition. The bill will always run into many billions. In the same way that the man does not drink anything but the best, from the then Blue Labels to the ultra-expensive Chateau Petrus, and wears only top of the line, from 4,000 dollar Zilli jackets to 6,000 dollar Brioni suits and eight hundred dollar silk cravats, an Erap campaign, the “greatest” performance of his political career should cost billions upon billions of pesos.

For now, a few of the usual Chinoy believers help in footing the bill for his “trailer” runs, the “lakbay-pasasalamat”, but the bulk of his political expenses, which includes the cost of being in the public eye, is pump-primed from his own personal fortunes, which ought to be considerable, humongous legal fees debited for his trial notwithstanding. But an Erap campaign is “otra cosa”, and many big businessmen have yet to be ensnared into the “cosa”.

Which brings me to the question --- who in this day and in these parlous times, would risk his money in a candidacy the life expectancy of which is dependent on what the Comelec and the Supreme Court declares? What happens to your contribution if the Comelec declares the Erap re-run a no-no? You could pee in your pants as much as you want, but the money goes down with it. But wait! There is hope, you think, in the Supreme Court. It has been swayed by “public opinion” before. It might make a “play for history” and reverse itself, when it declared in 2001, that Joseph Ejercito Estrada, duly-elected and duly-constituted President, “constructively resigned” on January 20, 2001. So your crap petrifies in the process of waiting. And meantime, you fly out of the country, make yourself scarce to calls from the Erap camp to up the ante. Remember the truism while business is essentially a take-risk affair, businessmen try to be as risk-averse as possible.

“To run or not to run”, Erap ponders. The answer lies in the money. Whose money, that is.

And then again, let me invite our readers’ attention to a legal question. If the Comelec declares the re-run disqualified, will they print the name of Estrada on the ballot? Will the board of election inspectors in computerized or manual mode, count the votes therefore? At their level, I would think not. Unless the Supreme Court directs them so, because as certain as light becomes night, this one is for the Court to decide.

But what if the Court tarries, and debates what to many should be an open-and-shut case, which is, and I quote the second sentence of Section 4, Article 7 of the Constitution: “The President shall not be eligible for ANY re-election”.

Then the Comelec cannot print Estrada’s name in the ballot, if computerized, nor on the official registry of candidates, if manual. How then will “vox populi” be recorded, as to moot whatever the Court decides or not decide?

That is why Erap, quite to his destined presidential misfortune, will need a lifeline in Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the woman who conspired with many to remove him from his throne in the stinking palace beside the stinking river. As it was she who gave him absolute pardon right after the Sandiganbayan convicted him for plunder, she it is who will ultimately decide whether an Erap re-run and an Erap re-election to a presidency once before lost, is better guarantee of her judicial peace after 30 June 2010, a “peace in her time” that would best protect her economic interests, more considerable than any in presidential history, as well as the political interests of her bloodline.

Her Ronnie the Tree favors this kind of arrangement, seeing as he does that their Kampi has no champion who could mount the national stage, not by a long shot. He knows Erap well, and believes that “amor con amor se paga” will carry the day in Erap’s heart vis-a-vis the Arroyos. After all, Erap has ostensibly pardoned Angelo Reyes, and welcomes Joe de V into his political tent. He has “forgiven” just about everyone who did him wrong. But how well has he forgotten? He revels in the thought that Cory has said she is sorry, even if everybody knows she is sorry only because her beneficiary, Glory, turned out to be such a political monster, not necessarily because deposing Erap through people power was such a reprehensible act. And if FVR would allow it, why, trust Erap to likewise light up his cigar, as much as he now drinks with the likes of Reynaldo Berroya, whom his vice-presidential PACC apprehended for masterminding a celebrated kidnap-for-ransom caper.

“Son capaz”, nuestros abuelos would say, of such kinds of political compromise, both he and she, unthinkable though it may seem to the ordinary Filipino mind.

But then again, can one trust each other, she more than he? For even in this day and age, transactions require a great level of personal trust.

The “old” new year

The new year unfolded during what has to be the longest uninterrupted holiday in recent memory. From December 24, 2008, a Wednesday, to January 4, 2009, a Sunday, one long break consisting of twelve days. Employers had to pay huge overtime increments; contractuals paid on a daily basis lost so much survival means. All because we Filipinos celebrate the longest Christmas season in the whole world, and have a historic martyrdom on the 30th of December, just before the new year rings out the old.

Which brings me back to my very practical, but culturally unacceptable proposal, repeated in this space every time the subject of holidays, and holiday economics, comes up. That is, why not lump all the celebrations of holidays during the first half of the year on whichever week coincides with Christendom’s holiest, and all the other holidays of the second half to coincide with Christendom’s merriest? All, except June 12, the national day. Thus, February 25, which commemorates Edsa Uno, and April 9, the Fall of Bataan, even May 1, Labour Day, gets commemorated on the days of Holy Monday thru Holy Wednesday, making for nine days of no work, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. And work, work and work throughout. Break comes back for a two-day or three-day commemoration (if a week-end) of Freedom Day on June 12, and move Rizal Day as well to June 13, proximate enough to his birthday of June 19.

Then, lump the following additional holidays --- Ninoy Aquino’s August martyrdom (a special holiday), National Heroes Day (August 30) and Andres Bonifacio’s November 30 birthday, and commemorate these between Christmas and New Year, thus declaring another nine days of uninterrupted legal break. The only other special holidays would be November 1 and 2, por los santos y los muertos, which morbid though it seems, is actually reunion time for the nation’s families.

Thus, work schedules are all predictable, and only a calamity of major proportions can interrupt pre-fixed work inertia. (Every time I suggest this to my family, my mother says I don’t think like a Filipino, and shrug off my “silly”, though utilitarian idea).

And since this is not likely to be accepted by most, president and legislators included, how about moving the school calendar, this time for school to open on the middle Monday of January, and the first semester to end in the middle of June? Then, after a three-week semestral break, classes resume on the second Monday of July, to end in mid-November, thus making the long vacation coincide with what to most Filipinos is after all the real holiday period --- the longest Christmas celebration in the world? This way, traffic is less unwieldy because Christmas shoppers need not contend with hordes of students, and students need not spend useless time on Christmas parties and Kris Kringles, let alone having to give “obligatory” gifts to their teachers. And balikbayans (they will be with us forever) can be escorted around town and in the provinces by their vacationing young relatives.


Tuition payments coincide with bonus time, which makes the Christmas revelry more austere, and OFW remittance fees less burdensome. Right now, there’s May to June, then October, then the Christmas bash. By moving the school calendar, there’s just the December padala, and then the second semestral tuition come June-July.

Sensible, neh?

* * *

Having given vent to my un-Filipino practicality, I now segue to the topic I chose to begin my new year with --- how “old” it really is. Old because as soon as the barangay kagawads and tanods have cleaned up the mess left by those stupid firecracker addicts, the Speaker of the lower house resuscitates the hibernating cha-cha. The report of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments on the Villafuerte resolution will be the first item in their agenda once Congress re-opens on January 19. And their boss Gloria says she will just think economics, not politics. Oh well, see how “old” the new year is? How many times have we heard that refrain before?

The new year also begins with corruption of the worst kind clinging to the air of this scandal-putrefied regime. Dionisio Santiago, the upright head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, rightly resents how quick-buck artists in the Department of Justice have recommended the dismissal of charges they filed after apprehending three rich kids, hereinafter called the “Alabang Boys” because that is their base of “marketing operations”, these “social users”, ha, ha, ha!

The Philippine Marines officer seconded to PDEA, the guy who caught these rich kids with a hoard of “Ecstasy” pills, Major Ferdinand Marcelino, claimed that he was offered bribes, from an original first offer of 3 million, up to a final offer of 20 million, just to release the suspects. Because the marines officer was unflinching, the “fixers” next worked on the prosecutors of the DOJ. My information is that a slimy lawyer who also “operates” election cases at the Comelec, and is connected to two extremely powerful persons, one a committee chairman in the lower house, and another a defeated 2007 senatorial candidate of Team Unity, was the “broker”. This lawyer used to be fairly decent until he himself became a “social user”, and became part of the retinue of the high and the mighty in the Arroyo regime, with their nightly bacchanals replete with vestal un-virgins in a rented hotel suite in upscale Pasig.

Now suppose the plain users and pushers were of the “lumpen” variety, operating not in the toney digs of Alabang but in the warrens of Tondo, do you think fix-cals would solicitously go through the contortions of “due process” and “excessive force”? Hell, they wouldn’t bother.

That’s what “patas ng laban”, Ping Lacson’s battle cry, is all about. Poor boys, my dears, are not as “equal” as the “Alabang boys”. They fry quickly, while the rich are able to fly.

Which is why I wholeheartedly support PDEA’s Santiago, when he rues that justice should be “parehas”, and the fight against drugs should be pursued without quarters. As far as I am concerned, traffickers and pushers should all be executed (if we could only bring back the death penalty), and users, “social” or whatever else, should be locked up in jail. Johnny Midnight was a schoolmate, and I feel sorry he has a son who is in deep shit, but the law is the law, my friend.

* * *

The “old” new year is likewise bedevilled by the Pangandamans, pere et fil, cabinet secretary and a mayor, who think that mauling a golfing pere et fil is par for the course.

Sure there was an altercation, because Pangandaman junior wanted to catch up with his father in the previous flight, and the De la Paz family questioned their golfing etiquette. “Hindi mo kami kilala?”, Nasser Jr. allegedly thundered. And then the mauling began, with bodyguards getting into the act.

Nasser Senior, the secretary of agrarian reform who dares not touch Hacienda Bacan of Mike and Iggy and Marilou Arroyo, just watched, charged the De la Paz sister. What the hell is he father, then golfer, and last but not least, Numero Seis for? Now Secretary Pangandaman appeals to the public to stop “vilifying his family” in blogs that have gone around the world.

Once more, hindi patas ang laban, in a society where the rich and the powerful “are not like you and me”, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald. Based on first impressions seen on television interviews, it does seem like the elder De la Paz is “ma-angas”, the kind to protest loudly, perhaps with some hints of arrogance even. But Pangandaman is supposed to be the “wiser”, and the better-placed in our polity, if not in our society.

In far more decent times, Ramon Magsaysay, president, asked Fred Ruiz Castro, a cabinet member, to resign because the latter made a wrong presumption of presidential intent. A small mistake, and off he had to go. Ruiz Castro accepted his fate with absolute grace, and was later appointed a Supreme Court Associate Justice by Ferdinand Marcos.

Of recent vintage, there was Peter Garrucho, the first executive secretary of Fidel V. Ramos, who early in the term of his boss, issued a tax break to gold miners without clearance from the boss. Regretfully, FVR had to let Peter, a decent man, go. Peter regained his bearings, and has since foresworn public service, going back to the corporate world.

Of even more recent vintage, young Arthur Yap, the newly-appointed agriculture secretary of the 2004-“proclaimed” GMA, resigned his post without second thoughts when his father was charged by the BIR for tax evasion on a land purchase where they were the buyers, not the sellers. GMA tried to coax Art out of instant resignation, but he nonetheless insisted on clearing his family’s name first. After the system cleared them of the tax evasion charges, he was re-appointed to the same portfolio.


If Nasser Senior and Nasser Junior want vindication from an altercation that should not have been, bruised egos notwithstanding, the way to that is clear --- make an offer to resign. That is the honourable way, no matter how unfair they may think it to be.

* * *

On the assumption that we are able to muddle through with this “old” new year, economic crisis, natural calamities and political disasters notwithstanding, and the system holds until another farce of an election presents regurgitated “hope” for new beginnings in 2010, we will begin writing in this space, starting Thursday the 8th of January, a series on each and every one of the ten presidential hopefuls, followed by a piece on Gloria’s options, and thereafter, a review of the political system that keeps us all bottled up, hopeless and helpless ever, in a benighted state.

Duquesa

Our paper last Thursday reported that the Philippine ambassador to Spain, Joseph Delano Bernardo, otherwise known in Makati circles as "Lani" before he appended the salutation "His Excellency" by appointment of Doña Gloria, has applied to become a Spanish citizen, a subject of its sovereign Crown.

Immediately, former congressman and career diplomat Jun Lozada of Negros Occidental labeled Bernardo’s trying to seek foreign citizenship while still an ambassador as "treason," and rightly so. Bernardo ought to resign forthwith, renounce his Philippine citizenship, and embrace the country of his stated forebears. And live in the land he now loves, España, happily ever after.

But did you know that someone else is thinking of living in Spain after June 30, 2010?

While in the presence of los reales de España, someone expressed the desire to reside after retirement in the country whose language the family is quite conversant with. This statement pleased los reales no end, and one of them expressed a warm abrazo. We could even confer honorary title upon you, thus making you one of us, one of the royals reportedly exclaimed.

What would that be – duquesa, marquesa, condesa?

This story came from a Filipino who is well connected in Spain, and because of such associations, himself speaks la lengua castellana, even if he does not look as mestizo as Lani Bernardo the ambassador, or Jose Miguel the husband of Senora Doña Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

As far as this writer knows, Spain extends dual citizenship to many who buy real estate and reside in this lively and lovely country bordered by the Atlantic in its northwest and the warm Mediterranean in its eastern and southern coastlines. But perhaps being extended honorary title as duque or duquesa, or whatever, entitles the person more than just citizenship or rights of residence. Does it mean the Royal Crown and the government of Spain will extend protection from whatever prosecution the government of the person’s previous citizenship would in the future make?

Maybe we should ask the Fil-Hispanic ambassador to Spain of Doña Gloria, not necessarily the country’s.

Or maybe we should ask Adnan Kashoggi, that Middle Eastern businessman who made billions selling European and American arms and munitions to countries all over the world, and who jets in and out of Europe, and in the 70’s and 80’s, in the US of A likewise. This column’s informant said that someone who recently went to Spain from pobrecita Filipinas met this very wealthy and very well-connected international businessman. To talk about purchases of arms by poor Filipinas, or to discuss possible investment partnerships, our informant would not say. Neither who was going to invest where. Perhaps the conversations were most private.

But Mr. Kashoggi had been very helpful. It was he who convinced the Emir of Kuwait to grant royal audience to Doña Gloria and the pre-arranged leniency to OFW Ranario, the lady au pair convicted for murder. No, it was not the King of Spain, as some other columnist in another paper wrote. My informant insists it was Mr. Kashoggi, who used to be very friendly with Madam Imelda Romualdez Marcos a generation ago.

Shouldn’t we be proud of the persons who lead us, who represent us? Thinking global, thinking like royalty even.

***

Someone else would rather flaunt it right here. At the marina of the Manila Yacht Club these days is berthed a gleaming new yacht, an eighty-footer minimum, its old-time members claim.

It was delivered from Hong Kong just last Monday, where it was refitted, reconditioned and remodeled with the most modern and powerful engine, state-of-the-art instrumentation, and sleek interiors. My friend who has seen the yacht estimates something like that should cost no less than 200 million. Whose is it?

A member of Doña Gloria’s cabinet, one of its most controversial. One of its most powerful too.

***

Is anybody surprised that after Pulse Asia announced that Filipinos consider Doña Gloria the most corrupt of our five recent presidents, SWS next says her satisfaction rating has sunk even further, from negative 11 in the previous quarter to negative 16 in the present quarter? So what else is new?

As far as the reigning queen of the stinking palace by the stinking river is concerned, so what? May magagawa ba kayo?

What we predicted in this space when she gave her predecessor instant pardon after his Sandigan-bayan conviction was validated by the survey of SWS. We said then that the masa who adore Erap will not be disposed kindly to her even if she gave their idol his freedom.

True enough, SWS reports that more people who approve of the Erap pardon are dissatisfied with La Gloria than those who disapprove of the pardon. In short, she may have thought the Erap pardon would endear her to his masa following. It did not.

"Mana walan utan na loob!", the Dona must have muttered in disappointment. "Sin gratitud…sin verguenza".

***

But it’s not only the masa who are fed up. No less than that elite army of legal practitioners, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines led by its national president, Atty. Feliciano Bautista, took out a half-page newspaper advertisement to voice their feelings about an administration "whose moral fiber has worn thin and whose conscience has vanished". Ouch! Is Gauden-cio Cardinal Rosales able to read that statement?

The lawyers strongly condemned "the culture of corruption, dishonesty and deceit that pervades our government" as "abominable."

Strong words from the nation’s legal advocates. What then would the nation’s moral advocates say? Or do they listen only to the likes of Medy Poblador?

***

We shall take a brief respite from the chores of writing this thrice-a-week column, to rest weary soul from the disappointments of life in this benighted land.

Till next year, to one and all – a Blessed Christmas, and may our people find deliverance in the coming year! From what, from whom, is for us all to meditate upon in this season of grace.