Render unto Caesar; render unto God

It is in the Philippines, more than in any other Asian country, where Church and State stare at each other eyeball to eyeball, the first with the breviary of morality and the second with a fully loaded political musket. It is thus that Jaime Cardinal Sin has transformed the Church into a force to be reckoned with since the turbulent years of the Marcos dictatorship. EDSA spun from the outrage of the citizenry but it was the Church that lighted the torches and pounded the spiritual drums.

But the Church's ascendancy didn't last very long.

Its hierarchy split during the 1992 presidential elections. Jaime Cardinal Sin supported the presidential candidacy of Speaker Ramon Mitra while the rest of the bishops were split down the line. Cory Aquino swung her support behind her defense secretary Fidel Valdez Ramos. Without this support, Miriam Defensor Santiago would have carried the day, and what the Philippines would have been under a Santiago presidency we shall never know.

Like the dictator, President Ramos eventually learned he couldn't take on the Church full in the face and win. Cha-cha became a household word as FVR sought to extend his term beyond 1998. With his command of Congress, the power of the presidential purse, and Joe Almonte breathing mystical sulphur into his ears, President Ramos could have won his bet. But Jaime Cardinal Sin and Cory Aquino foiled Cha-cha at the Luneta Sept. 21, 1997 with about a million resonating their opposition. History works in its strange and mysterious ways.

Ramos' Cha-cha defeat opened the doors wide open for the triumph of Joseph Estrada in the 1998 presidential elections. Cardinal Sin didn't figure it would work out this way; neither did Cory Aquino. Both were strongly and adamantly against Estrada. Both supported the presidential bid of General Renato de Villa, changed their minds, then joined hands again to embrace mayor Alfredo Lim's run for Malacañang. Why not support Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? The military will bark at her and she will cry, said the Cardinal. She is too "pragmatic" (read too ambitious and opportunistic), said Cory.

In the case of President Ramos, he too read his tea leaves and Ouija board wrong. He figured his endorsement would produce a reverse Beelzebub, propel Joe de Venecia to the presidency. There were other presidential candidates (A Ship of Fools, said Time magazine), Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Lito Osmeña, Juan Ponce Enrile, Raul Roco, Imelda Marcos, Santiago Dumlao. When the votes were counted, Erap Estrada had 40 per cent all to himself, the rest scattered like shards of a bombed-out Boeing among the rest of the presidential candidates.

Okay, we fast-forward. Eighteen months into the presidency, Joseph Estrada is stumbling all over the place. He bought time however with his temporary shelving of Concord, a partial cabinet reshuffle. He has promised henceforth to be a good boy, cross his heart. If he didn't shelve Concord, the experts say, President Estrada would be blown up sometime this year, a sorry pathetic caricature of a man who once startled the gods of Mount Olympus by seeking to join their ranks.

So what is the lay of the political land right now?

Well, as far as the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is concerned, it is willing to give Mr. Estrada a "grace period", similar I suppose to the 100 days "honeymoon" the business community assured the president. Cory Aquino, I suppose, feels the same way. Didn't you notice one thing? She studiously avoids being in Erap's company today, and the photographs are no more where she beamed in the company of the president.

This tells a story. Before Ms. Aquino was all for giving Erap a chance. Today, she feels the democracy she helped restore is going through a nightmare. How about FVR? The man is ominously silent, Mr. Ramos sticks to and has never wavered about what he said: that Erap's presidency is pa-ekis-ekis, urong-sulong and pa-warde-warde. And how about Jaime Cardinal Sin? In the company of Pastor (Boy) Saycon and Dave Arcenas representing the Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA), we had an appointment with the cardinal two days before he temporarily shelved Concord.

What we saw stunned us.

The color had returned to his face, the wit, the gay laughter, the full voice, the dormitory-wide smile, the bon mot. He was on a full schedule of appointments, with Fr. Sonny Ramirez and other groups waiting for their turn. The cardinal was deeply worried the democracy EDSA restored was now beginning to look like stumblebum with a bottle in hand lurching for a bench at the beach. We didn't really talk much and what we talked about, largely the political situation and the future of the Estrada presidency, was off-the-record.

Oh, yes, we also talked about the guilty verdict falling on Hubert Webb and his pals. And the cardinal, who had always believed Hubert was innocent, hoped the Supreme Court would reverse the verdict.

Then an aide brought in a full platter of Chinese ham. Yes ham. "And I can also eat pork," he added, while spearing snippets of ham which he munched with relish. Then a bottle of brandy, Cardinal Mendoza, his favorite, appeared and that too was poured into brandy glasses and downed by us. Just a year ago, the cardinal was on the verge of death. "Terminal cancer" of the kidney had shrunk him almost to the bone. And when pneumonia struck him at this stage, we feared the end was near and we all prayed. I think the cardinal was given the last sacraments.

Well, he is back. And in a fighting mood. A near miracle?

Who really knows what will happen in the future? If the president makes good his promise, that henceforth he is "through with politics" and will serve only the people, then he will weather the storm. And stay the course. But if his is only a tactical retreat in shelving Concord, which he promises to relaunch like a political meteor, then I am afraid, the dark clouds will gather again. He should have said that Concord was out, like Max Schmeling flattened by Joe Louis, and that would have cleared the political decks.

That `grace period" won't last long. Already, quite a number of people are beginning to entertain doubts. We are being made to understand there is a serious purge in the Philippine National Police as erring "generals" or "chief superintendents" are given the sack. Well, they are not getting the sack. They are just being transferred to other posts, like Gen. Romeo Maganto. Nobody is fired, or suspended, or arrested. It's just a game of musical chairs, gentlemen, the music going round and round, so you can hop right in and, er, swallow it.

That's also what they did with Gen. Caesar Nazareno, PNP chief, many years ago when Fidel Ramos was president. Malacañang announced they had the goods on the general, like phony purchases, phony missions, phony policemen, phony salaries. Media bore accusing headlines fit for the Thieves of Baghdad. What did the powers-that-be do? They counseled General Nazareno to seek respite abroad, and come back only when the thunder against him had abated. . . And that is exactly what happened. The general was never tried.

This column said it was also willing to go along and give the president a longer leash. But spare me the big empty drum. Don't tell the public this or that general has been sacked when the truth is he is still in the PNP hayloft with another assignment. Don't tell the public former DILG secretary Ronaldo Puno has been given the boot because he is a nogoodnik, then announce he shall soon bear the august, very honorable banner of Philippine ambassador to the United Nations. That's an insult. Don't boast about kicking the bad eggs out while keeping the likes of Armida Siquion Reyna -- the kulelat in surveys -- in office as head of the much-maligned MTRCB.

If the President can divide his enemies, he has won more than half of the battle to survive.

But if he fails the grace period, relaunches Concord, and graft and corruption remains unabated because they will only catch the small fish and not the big fish, and the cronies remain and the fat cats, and Limahong fares forth in the land, the president will succeed in reuniting the personalities who possess the counter-power to his rule. And they are Jaime Cardinal Sin, Corazon Aquino, Fidel Valdez Ramos, actually the three eminentoes of EDSA.

Behind the trio is the Church, now brooding, now vacillating, now criticizing, now somnolent, now in hot pursuit, always ready to pounce when the ground is hot, the steam whistles, and the lighted fuse crackles up the decibel tower.