It has begun to seep in -- into the minds of those dreamers in Malacañang, I mean -- that the hoped-for triumphant "state visit" of our President to Washington, DC is not going to materialize.
It's true enough that US President Bill Clinton politely invited Erap to the United States when the two met in a cordial one-on-one at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Auckland, New Zealand, in September last year. Clinton, indeed, might have extended his invitation sincerely enough -- but it's clear that events have intervened to make such a visit unlikely. The fact is that Clinton and his Democrats are already embroiled in the growing tension and excitement of the effort to secure Bill's anointed Vice President, Al Gore, the Democratic Party nomination, and, after that, get Gore elected President instead of a Republican Party contender -- who will either be Texas Governor George W. Bush (most likely) or his maverick challenger, Arizona Senator John McCain.
Then there's the New York senatorial bid of the First Lady herself, Hillary Rodham Clinton, which ought to occupy a great deal of Bill's -- shall we say "guilty"? -- attention. Hillary stood by her man during the Monicagate scandal in which Clinton almost got impeached, and now Bill has return the favor. After all, Hillary is stacked up against a tough opponent, New York's feisty, colorful, and sometimes provocative mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
Is there any time left for Clinton, then, to engage himself in a hand-holding exercise with a Philippine President, no matter how much Bill may like Erap personally? I think not. Clinton's priority is to convince the American voters to give his expiring Presidency a vote of confidence by electing Mr. Gore -- which, by no means, is in the realm of the probable. I'm sure that Gore and Clinton are hoping that Bush wins today's Super Tuesday "Republican" primaries -- the most important '"prizes" are New York, California and Ohio -- instead of McCain. For while Bush may have the Republican "pols" and the cash plus machinery, McCain would have more charisma and chutzpah to steal Democratic voters in the November elections away from Gore.
In this heated situation, with things getting hotter by the day in the political kitchen, why should Clinton distract himself from the campaign by having to entertain a Filipino President, particularly if he's perceived to be arriving with his "begging bowl" outstretched for help which could only be authorized monetarily by a hostile Republican-dominated Congress?
If you ask me, it's a blessing in disguise for Erap. For now he won't have to face being disappointed by not securing the "aid package" he had hoped to get -- and subsequently coming home sheepishly without "the bacon."
Common sense, in fact, dictates that he wait until next November's elections so he will know with whom he'll have to deal in the next four years. Jumping the gun on the future by going "calling" on a lameduck President may not be wise. Such a pilgrimage might irritate the Republicans, whether their bet is Bush or McCain.
If the Democrats, against all odds, happen to win this November, Mr. Gore is already buddy-buddy enough with Mr. Estrada. On the other hand, if Bush or McCain gets elected the next President, it will be easier for Erap to go fence-mending with the winner if he arrives in Washington with a tabula rasa, a slate in which he didn't express preference for any party or contender.
Political history has shown that Republican administrations are usually not very good for the Philippines. The Republicans are normally snobs and "imperialists" by nature and tradition. It was a Republican, William McKinley, who decided to doublecross General Emilio Aguinaldo and annex the Philippines as a colony -- mouthing the usual pious hogwash that he had made his decision "after a night of prayerful meditation." It was a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, who, for all his folksy and homespun virtues, supported the Dictator, his chum Ferdinand Marcos, almost to the very end.
Texas Governor Bush, on the other hand, made a very interesting and endearing statement (despite his frequent gaffes when speaking of foreign countries and foreign policy) early in his campaign. He pledged in one discussion that if he got elected President, he would make it the cornerstone of his diplomacy to express support for "America's friends -- Japan, South Korea and the Philippines," because (Bush pointed out) he wanted the world to know that America stands by her friends not just in the times when she needs them, but also during times "when she does not need them." I felt like standing up and cheering when I saw Bush on television uttering those words. But again, political promises -- made in the course of a campaign -- are not always reliable. Yet, who knows, Georgie may keep them.
As for McCain, as a Viet Nam prisoner-of-war hero and a man who suffered much and acted nobly throughout his career (even refusing to be released at an earlier date by the North Vietnamese just because his father was a famous Admiral in the US Navy, as had been his grandfather), we can expect he will act honorably towards old friends in Asia.
The problem is, of course, that the United States has a very bad track record in the "friendship department." The White House, the US State Department, Old Foggy Bottom, and the Pentagon, have a tendency to suck up to their enemies, and spit on their friends, whom they take for granted.
When all is said and done, our nation would do better to resolve that we will stand on our own two God-given legs, and resolutely make our own way in the world.
America's Founding President, the general who led the armies of the American Revolution to win independence from British rule, George Washington (1732-99), expressed this very sentiment most eloquently in his Farewell Address when he relinquished the Presidency.
He admonished his countrymen: "Take care the nation is not harmed by extremes of party spirit. Have peaceful commerce with all nations but expect real favors from none."
Then he packed up his papers, his sword and his symbols of authority and returned quietly to his farm.
That's why Washington, DC, the capital district, was named after him. No wonder he was described in one of the immortal bromides of history as: "Great in war, great in peace, and great in the hearts of his countrymen."
That was a strange disclosure made yesterday that our government lost something like 591 cases against drug pushers last year owing to errors committed by law enforcement agents (such as illegal arrests and clumsy seizures of evidence). This revelation was made by Police General Jewel Canson, director of the Drug Law Enforcement and Prevention Coordinating Center.
I'm not surprised that so many cases were "lost." What everybody suspects is that quite a number of these prosecutions were lost deliberately. The Canson report pointed out that government prosecutors, on the other hand, won over 4,800 other drug cases. More than 19,000 others filed in the last two years, he added, are still pending in court.
If we examine the cases "lost," though, we'll find that in that bunch are some very big ones. There was that notorious drug manufacturer and drug lord, in fact, against whom the National Bureau of Investigation and "narc" agents believed they had assembled an ironclad case. Sad to say, he was acquitted by a Quezon City Regional Trial Court because the judge "ruled" that the evidence presented did not prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt! Gee whiz. That big fish got away even though "everybody" knew he was the biggest manufacturer of shabu in the country. He must be laughing his head off until now.
Canson rightly pinpoints corruption in the ranks of law enforcers as a major problem. Since 1998, and that's just within a span of two years, 200 policemen and lawmen -- many involved in anti-narcotics operations -- had to be fired for direct or indirect involvement in drug-dealing. The general did not dwell on whether, when caught, these crooked cops and lawmen were arrested, convicted of heinous crime and jailed -- or sentenced to lethal injection. That's what we'd really like to know. Too often, when felonious and slimeball cops are tagged, their fellow cops let them get away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
And what about the cretinous "narcs" who steal dangerous drugs from the "evidence locker" both to destroy evidence and make a fortune for themselves by peddling those narcotics on the street? They should be consigned to the lowest circle of Hell.
The report confirmed that an estimated 1.7 million Filipinos, out of our population of 75 million, are on drugs. My gut feel is even that enormous figure is on the low side. Drugs kill. They also induce desperate drug addicts to rob, assault, and kill innocent victims. They destroy entire families. Even that so-called but misnamed designer drug, imported from Europe, "Ecstasy" rots the brain. Its victims become the "living dead."
The drug menace is growing, not dissipating. Can we blame Interior and Local Governments Secretary Fred Lim for adopting -- until the Court of Appeals shot him down -- such desperate measures as "spray painting" and a campaign of Shame-the-Pusher? Now that Lim has his hands tied, will the do-gooders and bleeding hearts suggest other effective means to fight the fast-expanding drug empires? You can't combat an indecent racket with an attitude of decency and forgiveness.
You've got to give no quarter and slug it out with the death-dealers, tooth and nail. And the devil take the hindmost.