Stalemate on Cha-cha, quite steamy

No better picture depicts the partisan political stalemate on charter change than the contrasting postures of Senate President Franklin Drilon and House Speaker Jose de Venecia during GMA's SONA.

Flamboyant Joe D was all ears - no pun intended - leading the boisterous clapping like an uninhibited cheer leader, while the stoic Frank D was a wet joker of the deck.

Only now that the SONA is long over that one can make light of the situation. Before then, the volatile atmosphere had been so foreboding with ominous angst that there would be no SONA; or, that turmoil inside and outside Congress would abort the SONA in mid-speech; or, that anti-GMA lawmakers would make their dramatic exit to embarrass her and, the worst scenario could be the domino effects of the street demos all over Metro Manila.

That no "untoward" spoiler took place is a tribute to wily geniuses on crowd management and control. Packing the gallery with the LGU executives nationwide among the usual VIPs and guests, and cornering gallery seats only for sympathizers did the trick.

One need no longer touch on the pros and cons of the unexpectedly shortest SONA there has ever been. So much already has been broadcast by radio and in tv and written in print media.

The occasion was President Arroyo's most relieving and defining moment after the most trying crisis of her presidency that almost, they say now, drove her to the precipice of resignation. Some claim that it was FVR's timely intercession with his Cha-cha scenario; others say it was the CBCP's twin-faceted Catholic church message; and most attribute it to the staunch stand of the PNP/AFP to rally behind the chain of command, that climaxed GMA's steadfastness.

Perhaps, the bitterest critics would agree that with the SONA taking place sans "untoward" incidents, GMA for now has passed through the test and relieved from the tempest with renewed confidence and sangfroid. And it was no happenstance that her spin doctors mainly focused on the Cha-cha. GMA had no other choice… what else to focus on under the present milieu?

Pragmatically however, the Cha-cha ploy, like the extinct flightless bird - the dodo - can not for long, if ever, take off from the ground, what with the Senate's shifting sands.

Its proponents can probably muster the ¾ vote resolution in the Lower House. But, in the present Senate, it's easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for Cha-cha to get anointed with the rarest miracle to get the ¾ nod.

Among the 23 senators, PGMA doesn't have the majority, much less, the ¾ required by the Constitution. What used to be Erap's minority cohorts and other antis now outnumber former admin solons, with the defection of Drilon and his three renegade rat pack. The unpredictable Joker Arroyo's Wednesday bloc can't also be counted for Cha-cha.

Erstwhile GMA convert, the feisty Maid Miriam, doesn't dance the Cha-cha. So do with Flavier who doesn't want the Con-Ass, Gordon who argues that impeachment first before Cha-cha, Joker who sneers at Cha-cha, and Magsaysay who isn't sold out as well.

Ironically, unlikely Cha-cha indorsers for parliamentary system are opposition stalwarts Enrile and Angara… The unsaid query of the Senators: Why would the "innocent" be made sacrificial lambs for "sinning" Gloria who's only too willing to cut her term by Cha-cha as the last straw for survival?

The present stalemate symbolized by Senate prexy Franklin Drilon and House boss Jose de Venecia during the SONA does, in reality, speak for itself. Res ipsa loquitor. Such stalemate is quite steamy, as yet not of the evanescent vigor of a heated cauldron, but the lukewarm steam at its incipient and tepid vapor, is foggy and quite misty as of now…