To save the Queen, she must stop dancing

GMA seems to be always dancing to the tune of Bobby Darin’s 1958 rock and roll classic - "Splish splash, I was taking a bath... Flip flop, they was doing the bop." From the time she took over in 2001 until today, people have perennially criticized GMA for always flip-flopping on important issues.

That is why her credibility continued to decline. The one that threw most people off their stride was her December 2002 "I will not run for President in 2004" announcement. The others are the pullout of the Philippine contingent in Iraq over the Angelo de la Cruz caper, the Palace’s hemming and hawing over the Balikatan-03 exercises, and the series of moratoriums on the death penalty. Whether fairly or unfairly, some quarters have even criticized her for acting like an eternal candidate. Worse, they have likened her decision-making ability to that of a "kuwarta o kahon" contestant’s. It’s about time she listens to the good people who really want her to succeed. She must ignore the sycophants who just want to push their own selfish interests.

But the real problem now is getting over the Gloriagate crisis, which has weakened her considerably. It is spreading like wildfire in the form of cheap CDs, "Hello Garci" ringtones, and now they’re saying Repertory Philippines is coming out with a musical called, Hello Garci!, a take-off from Broadway’s Hello Dolly! There’s really never a dull moment with the Filipino. But whatever it is, it has come to a point where she has to face the crisis squarely. Difficult as it is, the only thing she can do now is to stick to the rule of law and constitutional processes. At the very least, she has to prove that she won even by a slim margin, which could possibly be proven credible. Because wiretapped conversations are not admissible as evidence in court, she may get off on a technicality, even if the tapes are true. She can’t just sing "Rain, rain, go away" because the clouds will not clear until she faces the music.

In chess, saving the Queen as much as the King is an essential part of the game. Certain pawns are often sacrificed to get her out of trouble. In instances where the Queen is captured, a skilled player moves to create another Queen from a pawn. So far as they are concerned, adhering to the rule of law is her only road to redemption. The First Gentleman, her favorite son Mikey (who can do no wrong in her eyes), and her brother-in-law Ignacito (who claimed to be Jose Pidal and – according to text messages – is now taking voice lessons in Carnegie Hall to sound like GMA) have to be sacrificed. If she decides to rein in her relatives, then she should let the chips fall where they may. It’s the only move to check her mate – FG.

More important, GMA must learn from the lessons of history and literature regarding relatives who have been involved in the downfall of a leader. Presidential relatives are always like lightning rods. Feng shui teaches us they attract the negative vibrations that should immediately be dispelled.

The Borgias of Italy are a good example. Rodrigo Borgia who later became known as Pope Alexander VI, along with his illegitimate children Cesare and Lucrezia, brazenly practiced corruption at the highest levels plunging Italy into the lowest levels of depravity. Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth was an ambitious woman who goaded her husband to murder Scotland’s King Duncan. The "mad monk" Rasputin gained influence with the Romanovs when he reportedly healed Prince Alexei from hemophilia. Consequently, Czarina Alexandra forced Czar Nicholas to give Rasputin more influence than he was qualified to wield. Ultimately, Rasputin’s excesses led to the Romanovs’ massacre.

If GMA can make dramatic changes in her style of governance, she may be able to save her Presidency. Again, she can draw so much from history.

Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth I adopted the motto of Semper eadem (translation: always the same) with regard to what course to steer her nation to. Acknowledged by many to be the greatest monarch of England, Elizabeth Tudor turned a bankrupt country that was torn by religious discord into the greatest naval and mercantile power in the world. And she accomplished this in spite of scheming relatives, friends, and so-called advisers.

GMA is lucky because of three factors: the opposition offers no viable alternative to her; no real outrage registered to spark a spontaneous uprising perhaps because of People Power fatigue; and Susan Roces’ electoral protest is academic because she said her candidate is dead. People Power veterans are simply indifferent to another EDSA. Worse, many have given up.

In fact last year, a close relative, who was a veteran of EDSA 1 & 2, got so frustrated that she and her family just packed up and migrated to the United States. As one international observer pointed out, removing a sitting president by extralegal means is no longer acceptable. Only the constitutional process or the rule of law can succeed. As I’ve said, EDSA 2 was wrong so correcting it with another one won’t make it right. The United States made itself perfectly clear that they want the rule of law to prevail. Even if the Americans are somewhat disappointed with GMA (to put it diplomatically), they feel she is the only alternative at the moment.

At the end of the day, what is important is for GMA to restore her credibility. Congressman Joey Salceda – one of her economic advisers – told our breakfast group the other day that if there will be between P200-B to P300-B in extra revenues from new taxes by early next year (that is if GMA survives this typhoon) then she can rightly say that all the sacrifices were worth it because she can finally deliver the goods for poverty alleviation and infrastructure. The bottomline, after all is said and done, is that people just want to go about doing their business and make a decent living.

If she weathers this storm – people are worried she may even dance to more tunes just to stay in power. On the contrary, she should just focus, more than ever, on doing what is right to restore her credibility. That is the key to her survival. If she squeaks through this Gloriagate crisis, she should simply stop singing or dancing to different tunes. Preferably, she should just sing one tune – the Pambansang Awit.

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