Hyperventilated

Heaven help us from vain and ambitious politicians, disgruntled ex-bureaucrats and gullible demagogues ready to take to the streets at the slightest excuse.

We have just gone through a harrowing week remarkable for talk grossly outpacing substance and for speculation grossly outpacing the facts. Through all that, the peso flagged once more and the investment community was dismayed.

Friday night was not a particularly redeeming one for the maturity of our mass media.

Given the excitement of that day, I monitored radio reports late into the night. One radio station reported that blockades have been set up by the police to prevent a flood of protestors into the city – although the reporters did not know exactly where this blockades were. That turned out to be a hoax.

Then several radio stations reported that the home of former NBI director Samuel Ong was raided and ransacked. The report was echoed by opposition politicians congregating at the San Carlos Seminary where Ong had taken refuge. The long-winded politicians were raising the specter of martial law.

Finally, one news organization did what responsible news organizations ought to have done: they checked out the home of Ong. There they were greeted by a caretaker roused from his sleep and surprised by all the hubbub. The house was intact and no raid had occurred.

Saturday was supposed to be the moment for a political showdown. All the hyped-up exposes were orchestrated to culminate in what a few stray dissidents had called a "national day of mourning." The police was put on high alert. Crowd control units were brought in from nearby provinces. Peace-loving citizens stayed in their homes.

When the moment came, the dimensions of a major political flop became evident.

The only people who turned up for the "national day of mourning" were the usual leftist groups, those craving for their own version of an uprising after having been sidelined in both previous people power risings. The massing up was itself small compared to others mounted by these very same groups. At the Liwasang Bonifaco, the leftist militants endured the indignity of listening to the histrionics of Erap-era politicians, the same ones they themselves helped depose a few years ago.

A few self-evident things explain that political flop – not the least being that the issues were highly contrived and trumped up.

Assuming that the controversial tapped phone conversations were real, they were dated during the period of canvassing when it was already too late to alter the results. One conversation in that audiotape spoke of the missing returns from Camarines Norte. Recall that these returns became a momentary sensation during last year’s turbulent canvassing of the results. It turned out the provincial return was misplaced in the second box from that place.

Samuel Ong overstated his case when he declared that FPJ won the last election. That is a conclusion that is not carried by the evidence.

He undermined his own case when he popped out of nowhere last Friday flanked by Rez Cortez of the FPJ group and Fr. Jose Dizon of the NDF-affiliated groups. Everything he said henceforth was tainted by the political interest of losers.

Only the politicized formations of the middle class could mount an Edsa-type upheaval. These formations are not likely to catalyze around the discredited Erap-FPJ politicians nor the dead ideological agenda of the Maoists. Both factions have yet to realize they have acquired a reverse Midas touch: everything they touch turns to dust.

I do not know how serious fears of a rising could have been spawned by the overextended demands of the likes of Sen. Nene Pimentel who demanded the resignation of both the President and the Vice-president. His call resonated only among the Maoist groups whose agitprop mentality inclines them to put out the "sharpest line" in any political controversy. In this case, the "sharpest line", the most radical political positioning, implies calling for the resignation of everyone in sight as a predicate for yet another round of street turbulence.

But our citizens are not stupid.

They might be distressed and disillusioned. But they are not inclined to march behind false prophets. Much less behind the blazing banners of consistent political opportunists who try to ride every political controversy in order to magnify turbulence..

Unless there is anything more significant than what we have already heard from the tapped phone conversations, anticipations of a forthcoming political storm are largely unfounded. The last episode is nothing more than the political opposition hyperventilating over ultimately inconsequential things.

Nevertheless, all the frantic scandal-mongering indulged in by enemies of the administration are not without cost for all of us.

This is not the most politically robust of times for the Arroyo administration. Far to much time has been squandered foot-dragging on the reforms. The fiscal crisis and the means to solve it will not make this the most popular of presidencies. After four years, we have not moved significantly from the old paradigm of rule by political accommodation.

Political opportunists of every stripe sense the vulnerability of this administration. Down and out in the margins, they have nothing to lose by precipitating turbulence – although what profit they might reap is unclear.

All the muckraking will produce scandal-driven controversies that is attractive to our scandal-driven media culture. Unfortunately, while this will produce a lot of entertainment, it will not bring clarity about our national fate.

All the controversies will further weaken the political capacity of this administration to govern. Pushed to the wall, its instinct for seeking political accommodation will be further aggravated. Which could probably be the real play behind this tumult: vested interests seeking to make the political leadership more amenable to accommodation will try and make it even more vulnerable by using the brainless factions at the margins of our politics.

Meanwhile, the forces of reform responsible for ousting a failed presidency in 2001 are wondering if, in the intense political play between vested interests, power brokers and power-seekers, there is still room for the reform effort that will produce the modern governance our country so direly needs.