A deceitful government / MLSA: Why the secrecy?

They say the devil is in the details. And right they are. It took this columnist sometime to get into the belly of the monster and what I see and smell scares the hell out of me. I am referring to the Meralco flapdoodle. When the Supreme Court about a week ago reversed the Court of Appeals and decreed Meralco had to reimburse the citizenry P28 billion in overcharges, I figured justice was on the right track. Now I am not so sure. What I see and what I smell is that the government – even before the High Court rendered its verdict – had meticulously planned a takeover of Meralco.

Now tell me. Why did Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho fax the government proposal to take over Meralco lock, stock and barrel three days before the Supreme Court’s Nov. 15 decision? Did he have advance information about the Court’s decision? Wasn’t it a fact that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was stacking the Court with her own appointees and protégés? And like an octopus, the latter has tentacles all over? And poor Chief Justice Hilario Davide now finds his erstwhile domain rustling in the bushes like a snakepit?

Secretary Camacho, for all the hossanahs heaped on him much earlier, does not come clean at all.

Since last Wednesday, I have had in my possession the draft of his November 13 "Memorandum of Agreement" which he reportedly faxed the same day to Eugenio "Gabby" Lopez III, chair and CEO of ABS-CBN. Reading that memorandum several times over, it didn’t take you long to find out it was the "smoking gun" of the government’s insatiable greed. It is duplicity on its very face. Of course, it shocked the Lopezes as it shocked me and almost everybody else. The government demanded "effective control and supervision of the Board of Directors, management and operation of Meralco". If that is not takeover, I do not know what takeover is. Remember again: This was three days before the Supreme Court’s decision.

More: The government "shall nominate six representatives to the Board of Directors and the Lopez Group shall nominate the remainder of five directors". This is "democratic" as claimed by the government? This is not a takeover at all as claimed by presidential spokesperson Rigoberto Tiglao? But simply "management control"? Look, Bobbi, do not take us for fools, or dolts or idiots. Once you control management, you have the whole shebang in your pants’ pocket. Better than ownership.

Raul Roco is right. He wants Camacho to explain the "principle" behind the memorandum. He wants to know why the "apparent haste" and why the "suspicious" circumstances. He wants Chief Justice Hilario Davide to launch a full inquiry into the Court’s decision, how it was "leaked to the Palace". This is exactly how I feel about the whole thing. It was dubious. It was devious. It was duplicitous.

In the face of the uproar, Camacho is now moving backward, claims it was not his initiative to compose the memorandum, but that of his "friend" Gabby Lopez. Gabby had phoned him, asking for help. "It was done in good faith," Camacho said, "There is no malice in what I did and it definitely was not a squeeze play on the Lopezes." I really do not know how Secretary Camacho defines a squeeze play. In my book, if a boa constrictor coils around a victim, then begins to squeeze till the victim conks out, that is a squeeze play.

What also mystifies me is the information that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo never knew about the memorandum, nor the events or circumstances that led to it. Whaaat? If this is true, then the Palace, this government is in a worse state than what I figured it to be. We have an Ina ng Bayan who cannot even be an Ina in the Palace. We have an Iron Lady, whose iron has the twang of aluminum. Or is it possible that because the whole thing is now misfiring, everybody in the Palace is out to shield GMA from any fallout, the way Ronald Reagan was shielded from the Contra scandal?

But let me make my position more clear.

I have not taken the side of Meralco on the overcharge issue. Here, let the chips finally fall where they may. Meralco has appealed. And the Supreme Court will render another ruling in a matter of days. Maybe wiser heads will find a solution, clear a path out of the jungle. I did take the side of Meralco when weeks ago former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, then lawyering I think for the Marcoses, said the Lopezes at the outset of martial rule virtually begged the dictator to take over Meralco. That was a lulu. The Lopezes then were precisely fighting to save what they could save in Meralco, but the dictator was implacable. He had the Lopezes on their knees. He made them negotiate the distance to the Marcos altar on splintered glass.

Needless to say, the entire Lopez business empire was taken over by Malacañang.

Is this a sequel? Is history being played over again? Is Meralco the jumbo prize in a political power play before the 2004 elections? Or will there be elections? Are we invoking George Santayana all over again when he said those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat history?

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Duplicity was also the rattlesnake that prevailed over the signing of the RP-US Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA). I don’t understand at all why Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes behaved like vestal virgins in seeking to safeguard the "purity" of an MLSA from the public eye. From everybody. From the Senate for that matter. Only when the MLSA was signed was the Senate allowed to know, were we allowed to know. If there was nothing wrong, why all the secrecy? Why all the duplicity?

The MLSA, whatever Messrs. Ople and Reyes may say, is a public document that has a direct impact on the entire citizenry and the sovereignty of the republic. And should have been discussed at length. I really don’t care if US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone says it is a "boring" agreement. And all the more so when Ople and Reyes swear to the high heavens there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Simply an accounting thing. Simply a matter of supplies. Simply a matter of temporary housing. It gives the US no rpt no "basing rights". So fear not. It does not involve the Philippines alongside America if there should be a US invasion of Iraq.

Oh, yeah?

Precisely because you hid the signing from 80 million Filipinos gives me more reason to suspect this MLSA is just about as stacked as the playing cards of Nick the Greek. Why was it not subject to public discussion and debate? Why was the Senate – which has oversight authority over international treaties and agreements – literally kept in the dark? Why is Ople now – as his many critics claim – shilling for America and not protecting the interests of the Republic? Why did he and Secretary Reyes arbitrarily decide MLSA was an executive agreement and not an international treaty?

Were they dictated to by the White House and the State Department? And why the signing at this time when the US is on the verge of launching its invasion of Iraq? Will Philippine air, land and sea space be utilized by America’s armed might in this impending war? What did we get or what was promised to us by America in signing the MLSA? Are there hidden annexes? Concealed protocols? Or was GMA again taken for a ride by the clever, cunning, crafty president of America who praises her lavishly in public but hardly gives the Philippines the largesse the government deserves for stroking the beard of Uncle Sam and polishing his shoes?

So what happens now?

Is the MLSA a fait accompli? With a strut and a swagger, Secretary Ople dares Senate President Franklin Drilon to bring it up to the Supreme Court, assuring Drilon and the Senate the High Court would simply dismiss the issue as a prerogative of the Executive Department, and nobody else’s. This is not the point. The point is that the MLSA was signed in deceit. And this does not augur well for a nation in deep crisis. The MLSA is a grenade without a pin. It can embroil the country in a raging controversy at a time it needs to breathe while walking a high wire.

President GMA is not exactly enjoying high approval ratings. If this MLSA cuts through the political landscape like a live wire, the tensions it will ignite can consume the country.

It now appears very clearly transparency and candor are not the strong points of the GMA government. As Shakespeare said, "One may smile and smile and still be a villain." The government will eventually learn deception and duplicity do not pay. Vice President Teofisto Guingona, far from being a spent force booted by the government to the scrap heap, now finds himself a rallying point for Filipinos who love the country. And I am sorry to say that Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople does no honor to his position. He should resign.