Burlesque
By Noralyn Mustafa

ALTHOUGH still reeling from almost daily expecting the unexpected in the positionings, alignments, realignments, disengagements, and various other sideshows performed by our political leaders and assorted characters, I had resigned myself to one exquisitely profound conclusion, derived, no doubt, from a gift of clairvoyance that I was totally unaware I had until now: the next government will be voted into office by moviegoers.

But for a while there, I thought this cinema of the absurd (it had long descended from theater, which does not allow the inaccessibility that is the nature of celluloid) had deteriorated into burlesque when former Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago broke her own vow to her departed son, filed her certificate of candidacy a few hours before deadline and joined the administration coalition, indiscriminately firing all the way.

And then I surveyed the geography, as a duly registered voter of Sulu, one of the provinces of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, also known as the poorest, the least literate, the most conflict-ridden of both the armed and religious kind, the most disease-afflicted, constantly in a state of war, and the most remote a.k.a. as the country's backdoor. What's in it for me and my fellow travelers?

Though I may have no reason to doubt his integrity -- never mind if it is the least visible trait of our times -- Raul Roco's promise of hope or its acronymic equivalent looks hopeless to me. It's been promised before; besides, the situation is crucial, desperate and urgent. Hope is a luxury I cannot afford right now.

Top cop Panfilo Lacson may be what this country, at least its peace and order situation, needs -- The Enforcer. But based on what I know of him through his pronouncements, track record and image which I got mainly from media (I had a chance to go near him up close and personal, only once in my life; he didn't even return my smile and my greeting, didn't bother to say "thank you" for the copy of my newspaper that I gave him), he leaves me cold! Compassion may be the least of virtues for a leader of the strong kind, but one that appears to be incapable of it is someone we need like a hole in the head.

I may not agree with the method and the means that he represents and may not fault him for them, but I totally agree with Ka Roger Rosal in his phoned-in statements on ANC just now as I was writing this when he said, in so many words, that nothing less than a major surgery, a total transformation is the only cure for the ills we are suffering from today.

For me and for what I can safely say is the majority in Mindanao, including former rebel leaders I have talked with, nothing less than a charter change toward a federal system of government is the issue of this coming elections.

Therefore, it is through the prism of federalism that I view this rather barren landscape.

Roco has been virtually silent on this. President Macapagal-Arroyo on the other hand, has vowed to pursue it, and even, according to Speaker Jose de Venecia, agreed to make the supreme sacrifice of being a "transition" President for its sake.

Even just on that basis alone, I would cast my vote for her and her entire slate, notwithstanding my revulsion at the catch-tag they have labeled themselves with-"K-4" which is not only a cheap shot at being show biz, it also comes dangerously five digits close to the kennel. They don't deserve this self-inflicted name-calling; they don't even have the trait that is its saving grace, loyalty.

But coming from Ms Macapagal with De Venecia beside her, and at the unholy eleventh hour like an afterthought, I hesitate to even think about it. What is it about the President that even if we have no reason to doubt her sincerity at the moment, almost everything she promises makes us feel we are being sold down the Pasig River? Is it the curse of the incumbent, or the fact that she promised not to run and made a complete turn-about without even the endearing honesty of Miriam to admit "I lied"?

Vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda, who promises to lift the combined movie-television production from mere box-office blockbuster to the level of "Citizen Kane," has declared she is "open" to it, "after broad consultations, etc." Oh, Loren.

So what is our revered Aquilino Pimentel Jr. doing in that float? He was it who voted for the opening of the second envelope, who resigned his position as Senate president for that vote, who held the mike for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when she took her oath as President that high noon at EDSA, who has consistently advocated federalism right from the beginning when he was just a lonely, sometimes derided, sometimes ridiculed, voice in the wilderness. Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant in favor of another TV performer.

Maybe it is the perverse side of me, but Miriam's image comes like the ghost of elections past: her open-faced grief, unhidden by signature shades, not unlike Medea's in its intensity before national television, her telling you you're a lachrymose actress if she thinks you're one, her nonchalant admission she lied when she did, her blow-by-blow account of her negotiations to get a slot in any of the two leading groups, aware of her self-worth but humble enough to say a lot of good about the woman she had once condemned and with whom she is now aligned.

In all this burlesque she stands out, not because she acts best, but because she doesn't.

The future -- the immediate one at least -- is safe with her.

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