Saving Estrada - Why And Why Not

The Estrada administration has been dealt one black eye after another because its backroom operations have been stinking to high heavens. Instead of covering up for the most hands-off president the country has ever had, the palace crew which works in his name has been bogged down with rank incompetence and pointless turf wars. The Manero pardon and the political firestorm it has unleashed upon the land offer more damning proof of how badly Estrada has been ill-served by his own people.

At the annoying rate Estrada puts his foot into his mouth, made worse by sophomoric damage control by his handlers, it's not difficult to see the rationale behind former General Joe Almonte's comment that the administration does not need to be destabilized because it's furiously engaged in destabilizing itself.

Hopelessly torn apart by the warring factions of Executive Secretary Ronnie Zamora and the lady boss of the Presidential Management Staff, Lenny de Jesus, the Estrada presidency has hardly scored one single unquestioned victory in its turbulent 20 months in power. On the other hand, its once-formidable popularity ratings have been dragged down to the mire that there's now more and more open talk of Estrada's term in office being involuntarily terminated before 2004.

The Zamora-De Jesus feud has been so poisonous that even the laudable move of bringing in Aprodicio Lacquian as Malacañang's new chief of staff got mercilessly swamped by the Manero controversy. All the rattled Zamora could offer by way of apology was to echo Estrada's lame excuse that there were too many names in the pardon list for him to spot the notorious priest-killer of Cotabato.

Observers say this fiasco of fiascos ought to be laid squarely on Zamora and Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas who should both be summarily fired. No matter what the dull bureaucrats at the Board of Pardon may recommend, the president's authority to pardon is discretionary and political. Granting that the buck stops with Estrada, it's clear that the two officials charged with safeguarding his higher political interests were caught napping in their jobs. The awful result has been to widen the already yawning chasm between Estrada and his powerful critics in the established churches and human rights community.

As for De Jesus, she was lucky to be on a junket to Los Angeles and understandably kept out of the raging storm. Her recent public crying act had bought her some more time at the palace, but it also cast Estrada in a more unfavorable light as an indecisive leader who could be disarmed by a woman's tears.

Word now comes that De Jesus will soon be let go to serve as housing czarina and that Zamora's powers, too, will be clipped under the incoming team of Lacquian, a former Imelda public administration expert just brought in from Vancouver. Some critics have likened this equal-opportunity massacre to the old turf war between Joker Arroyo and Jimmy Ongpin in the Cory cabinet. When Mrs. Aquino's conservative inner circle asked for the head of Arroyo, there was a counter-demand to do away with Ongpin as well. This heartless quid pro quo, of course, led to tragic consequences.

But don't bet on either De Jesus or Zamora checking out of this cruel earth anytime soon. Both are simply being kicked upstairs -- De Jesus to eventually preside over Erap's vowed reincarnation of the Imeldific's Ministry of Human Settlements and Zamora to resuscitate his political career in 2001.

With Lacquian set to mind the store, the presumption is that Estrada's paperwork will fall into better hands and the wounded presidency could at least be spared from the curse of wanton factionalism and self-destruction. What political savvy the newly reminted Filipino citizen and non-politician will bring into one of the most political jobs in the country remains to be seen. For some tell-tale clues, there's the cloying hagiography he and his more go-getter wife have written on Estrada as the centennial president.

How another hands-off president in another country and another time coped with disaster may be gleaned from Ronald Reagan's deft handling of Irangate. First and foremost, the Great Communicator had to dispose of the chief-of-staff under whose watch the scandal broke out. Because the president could never fire people, it was Nancy Reagan who had to chop Donald Regan's head. Then they brought in Howard Baker, a well-respected senior politician with no more personal ambition to fight for. The national furor which had been edging towards impeachment soon petered out, enabling Reagan to move on to scripted glory by riding into the sunset at the end of his presidency. Let's just hope Lacquian will do a Baker.