If they do a Jericho March, would the walls come tumbling down? - BY THE WAY By Max V. Soliven

Today’s anti-Erap demonstrators, after a Mass at the Malate Church concelebrated by His Political Turbulence Jaime Cardinal Sin, will be led – it’s said – by former President Cory Aquino and Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to a rally in front of the Senate building where the President’s impeachment trial is scheduled to begin.

The protestors and demonstrators had hoped to do a Jericho March, meaning to parade several times around the Senate building in order to catch the attention of the Senators, shouting out, presumably, Oust Erap, Erap Resign, or, in the case of the militant Left, Ibagsak ang Diktadura or even Lusubin Ang Mga ‘Mansion’ ng Kulasisi! You know how emotional they can get. (Horns and trumpets blasting, of course). In this dramatic way, the demonstrators want, I guess, to do a repeat of the Old Testament tale about how Joshua, the general of the Israelites, conquered the fortified city, Jericho, of the Canaanites. According to the Bible story, Joshua was told by the Lord to have his army march three times around the city, their trumpets and horns blowing, and then the walls would come tumbling down! It certainly was a spectacular event in the Holy Book.

However, when we visited the ruins of that ancient town five miles north of the Dead Sea, a local historian debunked the Bible version. He said that Jericho had been destroyed in the 14th century B.C., and was already a heap of ruins before Joshua and his army arrived.

Our Arab guide, in fact, had another version. He said that, indeed, there were a few low walls of fortification still existing when Joshua got there, but a local woman took a fancy to one of the Jewish officers (sanamagan, what a lot of sex there was going on during those ancient times!) and let in the "enemy" through a secret entrance. And so, if the debunkers are right, Jericho’s walls never came tumbling down. (Jericho nowadays is famous for its oranges.)

As for the planned Jericho March of the protesters, can the demonstrators manage to cow the 22 Senators by their shouts and placards? In any event, the police are insisting on keeping the demonstrators in line, not allowing them to surround the building. If you’ll recall, it was in front of the former legislative building – now the National Museum – that student demonstrators brandished the effigy of a "crocodile" (buwaya) to represent Ferdinand Marcos. That was the fabled First Quarter Storm. The crocodile, it may also be recalled, snapped back with a merciless martial law. But Erap, as they say, is no Marcos. (What is it they say he lacks? Brains or balls?)

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The explanation given by Philippine National Police Director General Panfilo "Ping" Lacson regarding his mysterious trip to the United States doesn’t make sense. Lacson, who suddenly left for the US (he’s still there), sent his clarification through PNP Spokesman Senior Supt. Nicanor Bartolome.

Alas, it only deepens the mystery. General Lacson denied having any plans of "assuming control of the country’s political leadership", asserting he is "a police officer not a politician." Then he declared that he was merely "following up the commitment of the Foreign Operations and Appropriations Committee of US Congress to donate $26 million to the PNP Foundation."

That seems strange. Since when can anyone wheedle any money, much less $26 million, from a lameduck Congress? It’s much too late to expect a penny, even if – as Lacson claims – promises were made. When congressmen are celebrating their "reelection victories," or, if defeated, are packing up to leave the House and Senate, they’ve no time to entertain or grant an audience to a visiting cop with his cap held out for "donations." And what officials of any line agency in Washington, DC will be able to fulfill a so-called "commitment" to our PNP? Right now, they’re all biting their nails in suspense. They still don’t know who’ll be their next Boss, whether Texas Governor George W. Bush or (although he’s running out of steam and court options) Vice President Al Gore. If it’s the former, the Republican bet, many of Washington’s bureaucrats may find themselves out on their bottoms on the chilly sidewalk.

It’s also passing strange why our Top Cop should be abroad when there are so many demonstrations and even a "possible" coup to be contended with here. It’s like the Fire Chief of Atlanta going on a vacation while General William T. Sherman of the Union Army was burning Atlanta down.

Oh, well. Since Malacañang says that his trip was authorized and he’s on an "official mission", we’ll have to give Ping Lacson the benefit of the doubt. But I’m still puzzled.

* * *

I finally got my own copy of the controversial "fake" Christmas card which depicted La Gloria the Vice President already posing in front of Malacañang Palace. The intention of the "black propaganda" move was obviously to depict GMA as being over-eager to take over the Presidency.

Businessman Mike Arroyo, Gloria’s husband, assured me yesterday that the Christmas card was "spurious and vicious." Gloria had never signed or sent out any such card, he fumed.

What’s even naughtier (and more malicious) about the fake Christmas card is that it has, on its back cover, "Christmas Greetings from PGMA’s Official Family."

The first on the roster was our friend and partner – and initiator of the Impeachment Resolution – Rep. Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte (Quezon City) who was listed as "Executive Secretary."

Then there’s more mischief in the listing of several serving Cabinet members as purportedly being retained in the GMA Cabinet (if she takes over), such as Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon, Jr. and Finance Secretary Jose Pardo. Jokingly, Luis "Chavit" Singson is listed as Interior Secretary, Antonio Carpio (FVR’s former Legal Beagle and partner of GMA’s lawyer, Pancho Villaraza) as Justice Secretary, Mar Roxas as Economic Planning Secretary, Jose Cojuangco as Public Works Secretary, Sen. Anna Dominique Coseteng as Tourism Secretary, etc.

Incidentally, Mike Arroyo said that, if ever his wife GMA becomes President, he would have to give up every business he now operates and simply lead a life as "her dependent." He might even concentrate on his pet hobby, photography. He revealed that the fetching campaign photographs used by Gloria on her handbills and posters in her Senatorial and Vice Presidential campaigns had been snapped by him. Mike declared that GMA has already drawn up a list of her relatives and his relatives up to the third degree who will be banned from entering into any contractual or business relations with the government by Executive Order. The E.O. will include all their names, he pointed out.

But que sera sera, he shrugs. Mike insists that Gloria is not "in a hurry."

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We ought to take a leaf from the People’s Republic of China where they’ve caught a big fish. China’s Minister of Justice, no less, was removed from office and detained last week for unspecified "economic problems." In short, Minister Gao Changli went to office as usual on a Monday but ended the day with his detention and removal from office.

The job of Gao, 63, was supposed to be overseeing reforms of China’s underdeveloped and corruption-ridden justice system. Now he’s being held in the Jiuhua Shanzhuang hotel on the outskirts of Beijing under round-the-clock interrogation. Among the "accusations", it seems, is that, last summer, Gao Changli "disappeared" for a weekend in Beidaihe, the Communist Party’s seaside resort, with his mistress at a time State Council Secretary-General Luo Gan was desperate to find him in connection with a huge smuggling scam discovered in the southeastern port of Xiamen. You see? Smuggling is one of the big headaches of China, just as it is in the Philippines. The huge smuggling operation was reportedly run by a fellow named Lai Changxing who managed to flee to Canada with his family, and is now resisting all efforts of Beijing to demand his "extradition" to face trial.

In the heyday of his power, Lai had so many top-rung leaders and officials in his hip pocket that he was unfazed when Premier Zhu Rongji publicly warned him to stop his smuggling operations and surrender his unexplained wealth to the government as a sign of his "reform." Lai ignored the Premier’s warning believing himself "untouchable." He found out, too late, to his sorrow that this wasn’t true.

The irony of Justice Minister Gao’s fate is that he and his ministry are in charge of more than 1.4 million prison inmates, plus another 300,000 persons held in education-through-labor camps.

According to Jasper Becker, the correspondent of the South China Morning Post in Beijing, Gao first incurred the ire of Chinese President Jiang Zemin when the latter discovered prisoners in South China were being permitted to bribe their guards into allowing prostitutes into their cells. Minister Gao, whose ouster took place halfway through his five-year term, is the second Minister to be sacked since Premier Zhu took over in March 1998. Water Resources Minister Niu Maosheng was downgraded to a provincial governorship when it was unearthed by auditors that large amounts in flood-control funds had been "misappropriated" in his ministry.

In September, as a matter of fact, a vice chairman of the National People’s Congress, Cheng Kejie, was executed for having received 41 million yuan in bribes (estimated by the Post at $39 million Hongkong).

In the wake of the Xiamen smuggling scandal, Fujian (Fookien) Party Boss Chen Mingyi was removed from his post and replaced with Personnel Minister Song Defu. What about over here where the smugglers are still kings and spotted too often as visitors in the Palace? Are they immune?

The People’s Republic of China, in short, is on an honest-to-goodness anti-graft and corruption campaign. What about here? It’s only by coincidence, perhaps, that they have similar family names.