Images etched in memory - JAYWALKER By Art A. Borjal

Those photographs of palatial homes, featured in yesterday’s major newspapers, brought back vivid memories of those days, during the latter part of the anti-Marcos struggle, when the Opposition, led by the anti-Marcos members of the Batasang Pambansa, came out with photos and video films of the plush mansions, buildings and other pieces of real estate, owned by the Marcoses, in the United States. If I still recall correctly, it was then MP Orlando Mercado who was assigned the task of making public the jolting exposé about the Marcos holdings in the US.

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It was a dramatic press conference that the anti-Marcos Opposition staged, to demonstrate the extent and lavishness of the Marcos wealth. And the reels and photographs, shown over and over again in opposition rallies throughout the country, contributed to the erosion of the strength of the Marcos regime.

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Some 15 years after, I wonder if the photographs unravelled yesterday, through the report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, is going to have a similar impact on today’s generation of Filipinos. Note that there is a raging economic crisis in our country, and very soon, hunger and joblessness are going to stare the masa in the face. Amidst despair and poverty, one wonders at how the Filipino people, especially those coming from the lower strata, are going to react to those PCIJ photographs of what it claims are properties owned by President Estrada and his close kin.

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It is noteworthy that the impeachment charges filed in the House against President Estrada are not focused solely on the jueteng scandal exposed by Chavit Singson. The impeachment raps’ bill of particulars includes the alleged wealth amassed by the Estradas. This can only mean that the jueteng issue and the Estrada assets are going to intertwine with the other charges listed down in the impeachment raps filed against President Estrada.

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The snap election proposal, initiated by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, is fraught with danger. While it could divert public attention away from the jueteng exposé of Chavit Singson, the snap election idea can fuel even more the outcry, coming from various groups, for the resignation of President Estrada. And the longer the debate lasts, the faster the Philippine economy is going to slide downward.

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There is no way a snap poll can put an end to the raging debate on whether President Estrada should step down or not. For one, it can only heighten suspicion that there is a dark, hidden agenda behind the proposal. And at a time when the electoral process is not yet rid of warts, insofar as fraud and cheating is concerned, a snap poll offers no assurance that the people are going to accept its results.

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Remember the snap election in 1986? Cory Aquino did not win in that election. She was cheated. In fact, the Batasang Pambansa, which was controlled by Marcos ruling party, and which canvassed the votes, declared Marcos the winner. If Cory eventually became President, it was due to People Power. Now, who can say, with genuine certainty, that there will be no mass cheating in the snap poll, as proposed by Enrile?

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Some quarters suspect that the snap poll proposal is designed to sue for time, to enable Malacañang propagandists to devise ways or means of diverting attention away from Chavit and the impeachment charges. The suspicion is anchored on the fact that the snap poll is an impossibility, one that can never come to pass.

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A snap election can happen only if both the President and the Vice President resign, or become incapacitated. Now, Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has categorically declared that she will not resign. And she has a valid reason to say so. For the fact is that she has not been charged of any crime. And there is no outcry for her resignation, except from some leftist elements.

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Former Ambassador Rodolfo A. Arizala must have nurtured pain in his heart when he composed this letter which he sent to me, from Santiago, Chile, where he is currently a university consultant. Probably, he must have even shed a tear or two, as he, thousands of miles away from his motherland, pondered on the raging events back home.

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Let me publish in full the letter sent to me, via Internet, by envoy Arizala:

In your column, "A Loss and a Blessing," you talked about the resignation of Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the Estrada cabinet due to the raging political and economic problems facing our country, among them charges of "graft, corruption and cronyism" in government. The departure of the Vice President from the Estrada cabinet need not surprise us. Because as the Holy Book says in the Ecclesiastes: "For everything there is an appointed time, even a time for every affair under the heaven… A time to embrace and a time to keep away."

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Could it be the start of "musical chairs" in the cabinet? Time to "abandon ship, the S.S. Inang Pilipinas"?

The ship of state, S.S. Inang Pilipinas, is reportedly leaking due to the storm of "graft, corruption and cronyism." Will the "apostles" (crewmembers) wake up their "Maestro" as in Biblican times to order the waves, wind and rain to stop?

Will appropriate "damage control" be done so that S.S. Inang Pilipinas would not suffer the same fate as the Russian modern nuclear submarine Kursk which sank and entombed forever with its crewmembers in the freezing cold waters at the bottom of the North Sea?

While the city folks prepare themselves for demonstrations and rumors of coup d’etat, in the rural areas, will Mang Pandoy continue to be silently behind his carabao weeding out his rice field hoping that the darkening clouds in the horizon will not fall as rain and drown his crops? Will Mang Pandoy’s eldest son remain on his boat with fishing rod and net catching fish from the sea, seemingly unaware of the darkening clouds and cool warm sea breeze presaging a storm? Mang Pandoy’s wife remain at her cubicle in the public market hoping to sell the last batch of fish before she goes home and welcome her grandchildren from a barangay school? Meanwhile, her grandchildren and their classmates have started singing, "Let us put our books away, study time is over. Homeward skipping. Soon we will be at play."

These are the questions which assailed us expatriates abroad as we watch what is going on in our country from across the seas.

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Art A. Borjal’s e-mail address: <[email protected]>