Something has got to give…

For sure, we cannot go on like this. The nation cannot remain this irreconcilably divided. This was not the first time it happened in our lifetime. This same feeling bugged me shortly after Ninoy Aquino was murdered in 1983. I remember that even Mr. Marcos, the dictator who used the armed forces to keep his regime in power, observed that he must seek some form of modus vivendi with the growing opposition. That’s why he offered the "snap" election as a means of clearing the slate.

But the outrage was too far gone by then and Mr. Marcos was also losing his grip on power. It didn’t help his cause that there were too many victims of his dictatorship, too many children orphaned, too many wives widowed, too many parents lost their children. Too much bad blood all around!

The extravagance of Imelda and the rapacity of the cronies were also too blatant to ignore. The tipping point, I guess, was the televised shedding of blood… Ninoy’s blood. There can’t be any turning back, no matter how ready Mr. Marcos might have been to compromise. It was too late.

When I saw on television how the frail and ageing Tito Guin-gona, a former Vice President selected by Ate Glue herself, and a front phalanx of equally ageing bishops being "cannonized" by high pressure water cannons, a sense of foreboding came upon me. I thought, if any of these senior citizens, these principled leaders, who have no more axe to grind other than love of country, get killed in this dispersal operation, heaven help us.

My friend Alex Magno uncharitably referred to Tito Guingona as a marginalized politician and in a sense, he may be right. Tito G is long past his glory days when he fought the Marcos dictatorship at very real risk to his life, so that Alex can speak freely as he speaks now. Some of Tito G’s ideas on matters like international trade are also out of date. But what Tito G has going for him is a record of public service unsullied by hints of any impropriety. That’s quite an achievement for any Filipino public servant whose career has gone as far as Tito G’s has. This is more than Ate Glue can say for herself.

Ate Glue must realize that marginalized as Tito G might be in the view of her minions, he is the perfect lamb to be offered in sacrifice, perhaps an even more worthy sacrifice than Ninoy Aquino was. Of Ninoy, people could say he took an extremely high stakes gamble in a play for power. The only thing one could expect from Tito G is that after marching in the rally, he would just go back to his home in New Manila and resume his retirement. He gave up an appointment to be ambassador to Beijing when representing Ate Glue became untenable to his principles.

Chalk it up again to Ate Glue’s incredible luck that Tito G was not hurt in that violent dispersal nor did he die of pneumonia as a result of that high pressure water hosing he got from her police. I am sure many people thought of People Power heroes like Chino Roces and Sen. Lorenzo Tañada who were equally manhandled by the police in their time… "cannonized".

I would be worried if I were Ate Glue. If these principled old men with nothing more to lose but their lives persist, every encounter with her police is one step closer to a civil unrest that could eventually unseat her. The new confrontational approach of Ate Glue and her Palace minions is also not working at all, assuming that the objective is to eventually allow Ate Glue to function as President. The confrontational strategy is creating more enemies and making old enemies even more resolutely antagonistic to her.

Ate Glue cannot continue to challenge her critics in pretty bold language and unleash her police against those who would demonstrate against her regime in the streets. In so doing, Ate Glue herself is dividing the nation, something she feared she was doing and she said so herself in that Rizal Day speech when she said, in a rare moment of statesmanship, she won’t seek election again for that very reason.

It is time to seek a modus vivendi with the opposition or accept a do-or-die referendum that would once and for all ask the people if they want her to continue to lead or to step down, as proposed by Catholic Charismatic leader Mike Velarde. That very partisan action of the House on the impeachment complaint did not close the book. Five more years of living like this would be living hell for this nation and no leader who truly loves this country would want to have this curse on her conscience.

In a sense, it is also understandable that she feels besieged and sorry for herself. Opposition to her ascendancy had been relentless from Day One. But she should have expected that, given the manner by which she gained power. Even if she assumed power the normal way, it is expected of the President to have serious detractors. It is her job to win them over, the way Eddie Ramos did. "The test for leadership," Mindanao News’ Patricio Diaz wrote, "is in how to find wisdom in criticism, in how to befriend critics, and in how to make political rivals constructive partners."

Unfortunately, all the sound and fury that keep her from doing what is right indicate that the President has miserably failed this leadership test. That was what the Hyatt Ten was telling us. Governance is playing second fiddle to political survival. At the rate we are going, something has got to give, sometime.

What we need is a leader who can get us to start trusting each other. Without trust, we would just be fighting each other until one by one we give up, leave for abroad as a large part of the middle class have, and bahala na what happens to the country! But before a leader can inspire us to trust each other, we will have to trust him or her first. Her problem is convincing us to trust her.

The Hyatt Ten gave her a plan of action, which she ditched, leading them to seek other options. I know Rep. Joey Salceda has sent her memo after memo with pretty good action plans that would build confidence in her and eventually, may lead to people trusting her somehow. But like the Hyatt Ten proposals, she junked most of Joey’s important suggestions that would hurt her group of supporters in charge of the dirty tricks.

Her appointments to government positions are still basically anchored on political survival. The vendetta she unleashed on DepEd Usec Mike Luz, a career civil servant who was just doing his job according to the book, reinforced her image as a villain in the minds of those who believe in good governance.

Loose talk of emergency powers from her Justice Secretary makes things worse. It is ominous that Gen. Eduardo Ermita is emerging as her public face. Ermita was one of the martial law administrators under Mr. Marcos, whose assignment was to censor newspapers, making his democratic credentials suspect. The soul of Cong Dadong, who suffered martial law, must be restless, embarrassed at his failure to inculcate the right values in his daughter. I can’t imagine Cong Dadong allowing a senior statesman like Tito G "cannonized" like some dog shit in the street.

What absolutely worries me is that the armed forces and the national police, despite all the claims of loyalty to the chain of command, are institutions that mirror the sharp divisions in our society. There should be enough officers and men who are scandalized by what they see in government and who at some point may feel it is their solemn constitutional duty as protectors of the people to take action. What happens when they feel they cannot take it anymore?

Blood in the streets is bad for every one of us, and it is Ate Glue’s duty to make sure it doesn’t happen. Mere orders to the top brass and mere assurances of loyalty from them mean nothing. The tough calibrated preemptive response they are taking now is a mere band aid that does nothing to heal the infected wound underneath. Gangrene eventually sets in and soon enough, the only cure is amputation.

She has to start really genuinely reaching out and governing each day as if it were her last chance to do what is right… what history would record. Ate Glue must realize it really isn’t about her. It is about the country. I want to believe Ate Glue isn’t hopeless, no matter how hard she tries to be. She just needs her moment at Damascus. That’s something worth praying for.

Text jokes

Thx to txt jokes, we manage to survive. Here is one.

Sabi ng mga banyaga sa panahon ni Marcos 65 million cowards and one sonofabitch! Ngayon ang sabi nila, 85 million cowards & idiots, against one BITCH!

And here’s another.

BF: Mam, pag na-install na ang mga BIKE LANES along EDSA, JOSE PIDAL ang itawag natin.

PGMA: Masyadong halata naman. Maganda kung BIKE ARROYO!

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]