Is it really 'goodbye' to Dragon Lady, or will she do a'MacArthur'?

The word is out that the President's new "Chief of Staff," Aprodicio "Prod" Laquian, will also be named head of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS), replacing Secretary Leonora de Jesus -- a.k.a. the Dragon Lady.

The President is supposed to swear Laquian into his new post today. Perhaps it already happened in Cebu City yesterday -- but, as I write, there's no confirmation of this since the Presidential plane still hadn't arrived last night as I bat out this column.

Under the present scenario, Ms. De Jesus is supposed to move over to the still-to-be-created Housing Department, although she is currently acting chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). Do the latest developments mean that, with Prod Laquian taking over the PMS, Lady Dragon will move out of her two offices in Malacañang, one of them in the Premier House right next to the President's? One thing we've learned: Never predict anything about Lenny, because she can use tears and temper interchangeably with unpredictable effects.

Only when and if she packs her bags and leaves the Palace for an "outside" post, I'll believe it. If she doesn't depart, then poor Laquian. He's just back from Canada, and the time could come that he wishes he never came back.

The President has gotten himself a real professional in Prod. Not only has he spent years overseas working on major multimillion-dollar projects in Vancouver, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Bangkok, Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and served as a deputy director in the United Nations Population Fund in New York City, but he's written 14 books and about 50 journal articles and book chapters on issues related to urban planning, socialized housing, rural-urban migration, international migration, urban politics and planning and governance of large cities.

He should know domestic politics as well, having been National Campaign Officer for "public issues", in 1998, of the Erap Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) and the Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino (the original LAMMP). He worked in "JEEP" too, from 1994 to 1998, and even helped draft the party platform for the Estrada campaign.

On the other hand, all these years of service and experience may not have prepared him for the sort of infighting that goes on daily in that Puzzle Palace called Malacañang. He left the country when Erap won, his "duty" done (he thought). In the year and a half since he was away, a new brand of guerrilla fighting has been developed in the Estrada Palace, with which Laquian may not be familiar.

He'd better learn fast. His survival, much more than his success, depends on that.

Police Director (General) Panfilo Lacson's feat last Thursday (Feb. 3) in rescuing businessman Joseph Uy from his abductors and smashing a notorious "kidnapping for ransom" (KFR) gang -- within two days of Uy having been snatched near the Anson Arcade in the heart of Makati -- has been published joyfully in Chinese-language newspapers in Taipei and Hong Kong. That's what some Chinese friends of mine told this writer yesterday.

The quick "solution" of the Uy abduction has sent the reputation of the revitalized Philippine National Police soaring. It just shows you how "leadership" can inspire policemen to be proud of their uniform again -- in just a few months.

Hot on the heels of this successful operation of Lacson's Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, PNP Investigation Group and Police SAF (Special Action Force), the police raided the house of the "mastermind" of the gang. He was found to be a relatively young fellow, almost an "amateur," and -- worst of all -- turned out to be related to some of his kidnap victims.

The police yesterday declined to release the man's name. He must be undergoing "tactical interrogation." One thing is true -- the Chinese-Filipino community, long the preferred "target" of the kidnap gangs, is rejoicing. The police must follow up this "victory" with more forays against organized crime.

The thought intrudes: One reason the cops are "on a roll" (as the expression goes) is the fact that their highly-placed protectors may no longer be calling the shots in the police department. Lacson should keep it up.

Public confidence in the police force is going up. But remember: what goes up can come down. Just as swiftly and as conclusively.

His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin said it right, commenting on the horrifying "conditional" pardon granted Norberto Manero, Jr., the convicted mad-dog killer of an Italian priest, Father Tullio Favali.

The Manila Archbishop said: "I fear for the lives of the people who took the witness stand against him."

In the light of the all-too-easy manner in which convicted murderers and scumbags manage to slip out from prison via an incredibly lax "pardons and parole" system, don't you think it's time our Bishops and our hierarchy reviewed and reversed their customary stand against Capital Punishment?

When a killer is released within less than the so-called "life imprisonment" meted out to him for having committed a heinous crime (in Manero's case, he got out from his "life" sentence within only 12 years -- for "good behavior" kuno despite an earlier jailbreak) what's going to happen to the witnesses who were brave enough to testify in court against him? In most cases, hasn't our stupid Board of Pardons and Parole virtually "condemned" each innocent witness to death? This is a country where evil men (and women) take revenge. As they say in the Cosa Nostra's vendetta-ridden Sicily, vengeance is a dish that tastes more delicious when served cold.

Sad to say, we have no "Witness Protection Program" in this country as efficient as that in the United States, where witnesses who put their lives at risk by testifying in major cases, such as those identifying and convicting mobsters and Mafia bosses, can ask to be given new "identities" and transferred to "safe" addresses in other cities or states to escape retaliation. Our own program has protected such witnesses as Jessica Alfaro.

However, with our prisons leaking like sieves, and hundreds of convicts staging "escapes" yearly, or, even more stultifying, weaseling their way out through our "Board of Pardons and Parole" by some sticky maneuvering, witnesses become sitting ducks. Soon, if this keeps up, nobody will be willing to testify -- and the murderers, goons, and sleazeballs will get away without spending a day in jail. Do we want this? We'll not only be worrying, to borrow Erap's scornful term, about "hoodlums in robes," but about witnesses who suddenly get struck dumb and blind. You know: See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil -- like the Three Wise Monkeys of Nikko.

Before the Board of Pardons and Parole tries to make a monkey of our President again, I suggest that Sir Erap kick them out. They let Manero go, without red-flagging his name to alert the Chief Executive that his "release" might be a controversial and embarrassing one. They "set up" an unsuspecting President, then, to add insult to injury, none of them have manifested any remorse. What kind of creeps are these? A ton of law books thrown at the public to obfuscate the wrong that was done by springing bloodstained Manero won't compensate for the harm that was inflicted, not merely on the President's credibility, but against the very lives of the witnesses in the Manero trial.

I don't agree with some critics who've been attacking the President for not having "noticed" that Manero's name was on the Christmas "pardons" list. The President was honest in admitting he was fooled. Of course he was. (Presidents and columnists alike are not perfect. They don't see and know everything. Going through a list of 500 names during a busy Presidential day is not a breeze). Mr. Estrada trusted in the probity and "careful" attention to details of his Board of Pardons and Parole and the Department of Justice. And they betrayed this trust.

That's the long and short of it.