Crime, rewards
and punishment
By Noralyn Mustafa

YOU don't have to be superstitious to see all the omens.

Not with dawn's promising skies, but in the infernal dead of night the deed was done. Democracy was murdered in the cathedral of Congress, stifling the voice of the people.
Like two naughty boys made to recite the oath of allegiance before the class as punishment, Senate President Franklin Drilon and Speaker Jose de Venecia almost with one voice proclaimed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo president of the Philippines.

The date was ominous enough. Summed up in the occult manner, it came up with the devil's symbol. A Chinese feng shui expert tried to dispel the gloom by showing that June 24, 2004 was a good date and inverted the figures "666" to make them "999," without explaining how Chinese numerology could apply to the Gregorian calendar.

What immediately followed was the distribution of rewards and penalties according to how people and places helped or didn't help her get elected.

She broke with tradition and held her inauguration in Cebu because, according to her, "the people of Cebu made me President of the Republic of the Philippines." She forgot that without the combined block votes of the Iglesia ni Cristo and the El Shaddai, she would have lost to Fernando Poe Jr., by over three million votes.

And as she wined and dined in the Queen City of the Visayas, the very heavens wept, according to my favorite columnist Conrado de Quiros, and Luzon drowned in its tears.

The very next day, while in Butuan, to reward that province in Mindanao for her landslide victory there, she -- compulsively as usual and too soon -- indulged in her tragic flaw: the broken vow.

She was for Charter change, she said, but it was up to Congress to act on it, only going so far as to show the wisdom of the parliamentary form of government with the enthusiasm of a matron who had just discovered the joys of multi-level marketing.

"Why did EDSA I, II and III happen?" she asked her audience. She answered her own question, explaining those three historic events in a way I have never heard or read before: "It was because the term of the president was not yet finished and the people wanted a change."

I could not for the life of me comprehend how the 14-year extended second term of Ferdinand Marcos "was not yet finished," or how impeachment for plunder, corruption and betrayal of public trust had anything to do with an unfinished term, or how it could have driven the enraged unwashed to rush to Malacañang, except perhaps to reclaim it.

Nonetheless, the moment she returned to Manila after a side trip to distribute relief goods to the hapless victims of typhoon Igme, she and De Venecia had Cha-cha almost wrapped up -- as quickly and as surreptitiously as that Congress proclamation -- with focus on the shift to a parliamentary system -- and a federal form of government as a rider.

For even here, too, in purportedly answering the clamor of the Cebu electorate and, yes, also Mindanao's, power and ambition reared their ugly twin heads. This was the payoff for De Venecia's masterful steering of the congressional midnight express.

But the lady did protest: no, don't even think about it, she would not cut her term and be a "transition" president. A member of the syndicate of sycophants quickly invoked the rule of law. The President, he said, was elected to a term of six years. If you cut it, that would be thwarting the people's mandate.

One wonders what they would call cutting Erap's term.

Although he is an acknowledged genius of political sleight-of-hand, De Venecia recognizes an immovable object when he meets one. And tried to use an irresistible force: you will be the prime minister and president at the same time!

Lesser mortals would have instantly crumbled at the prospect. But not Ms Arroyo, although I vaguely remember one of her sound bites where she said she would want First Gentleman Mike's role to be "like that of Dennis Thatcher."

She wanted to finish her term, she said, and just leave the new Constitution as her "legacy" at the end of her mandate.

Of course, one wouldn't put it past De Venecia to persuade the future honorable members of parliament to declare the Philippines a monarchy and... but that's another story.

Because while the two of them were mulling their "preferences" in "the interest of the country," prices of everything we need for survival shot up, the gigantic budget deficit yawned to engulf everyone; and now our countryman, Angelo de la Cruz, sits somewhere in the bowels of Iraq, clad in an orange shroud with a sword over his head.

And just like in many other crises we have had to go through, Ms Arroyo would make no comment on this, too. There was her monumental silence during the impeachment trial and EDSA II, appearing only when the coast had been cleared, to take her oath of office.

There was her silence on the NAIA takeover, appearing only with a triumphant smile to announce that the enemy had been "neutralized."

There was her silence during the Oakwood incident, appearing (with arms raised in victory and a little jig) only after the Magdalo officers had given up, to announce that her government had survived yet another destabilization attempt.

This time, even the media are asked to take a vow of silence and the family of De la Cruz has been taken into custody to ensure that there will be a news blackout.

And all we can do is to obey Ms Arroyo's bidding on how to carry ourselves through this and future trials: light candles and pray.

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