Let our politicians give us a break from endless finagling!

Winging back to Manila from Shanghai ought to have brought on a relieved and exultant shout of "Home Sweet Home!" But home, alas, isn’t sweet. It’s full of ersatz sound and fury signifying nothing but politics, politics, and more politics.

Indeed, coming from a dictatorship which is booming economically, one reaches the sad conclusion that we Pinoys and Pinays are giving "democracy" a bad name. I used to write with enthusiasm and fervor, "I wouldn’t have it any other way," but after years of experience and exasperation, I confess to have reluctantly begun to reconsider the so-called virtues of a "free" Republic.

Look at human rights. The defense of human rights is . . right. But just consider the hordes of evil men and women who get away with murder, literally, by invoking their human rights, abetted by human rights activists and lawyers. Nobody remembers the rights of the victims, because those unfortunates are no longer breathing and cannot raise a howl.

Before I left to spend eight days in China, they were howling about "impeachment." On my return, I find they’re still engrossed in the "impeachment" struggle. The nation, in the meantime, hasn’t budged an inch in any direction, except that the oil and fuel prices have alarmingly jumped a notch higher. I’m tempted to assert that we’re running on empty, but this isn’t completely true. We’re being propelled by hot air from our nonstop debaters and inveterate media critics. Hot air is good only for balloons, and someday soon somebody will come along to prick our balloon.

* * *

I see former President Corazon C. Aquino, Ms. Susan Roces (Mrs. Poe) and other "GMA Resign" or "get ousted" leaders trying to organize "Marches of Truth." Can they, in the next day or two mobilize enough thousands to reach some semblance of People Power? Doesn’t seem likely. But what kind of a democracy is this when mob action in Metro Manila can "decide" whether GMA’s guilty of cheating, or who should be President?

This writer met yesterday with Police Director General Arturo C. Lomibao, Police Director (General) for Operations Isidro S. Lapena, CSEE; Police Chief Supt. Servando Mina Hizon, Director for Logistics; Police Chief Supt. (General) Leopoldo "Pol" Bataoil; and Col. Lory Diño (ret.).

Lomibao said that 300 PNP officers and men had been assigned to maintain order in the environs of the Batasan Pambansa (House of Representatives) and Metro Manila’s streets during the "impeachment" process, with 5,000 more policemen on stand-by for rapid action if so warranted.

"Marches or demonstrations," Lomibao said, "would be permitted only if they had a Mayor’s permit."

Don’t worry. In Makati City, Mayor Jojo (Jejomar) Binay, whose dynasty has lasted since 1986, is always ready not merely to grant a mayor’s permit, but lead an anti-GMA mayor’s rally.

What if the "impeachment" fails to get 79 Congressmen in the Lower House and doesn’t get sent up to the Senate for trial?

Will there be trouble? From whom? The "people" seem exhausted, or simply sick and tired of it all – but I’m willing to be surprised or repudiated on this observation. From the Armed Forces? I could hardly believe it when ex-President Cory Aquino was interviewed on television and she commented on it. (Should have just kept silent). She facetiously remarked that, as a former Commander-in-Chief, she still had some "friends" in the military. What did she mean by that? That she could influence some in the Armed Forces? To what? Mutiny against La Gloria? Don’t you think that statement was irresponsible, coming from a former Chief Executive?

As for having "friends" in the military, I suspect Cory had very few. There were five or six coup attempts against her, and the final one in December 1989 almost unseated her. It’s not wise for her to invoke or even hint at the military "option."

The Congressmen who’re opposing "impeachment" met yesterday morning till noon at the EDSA Plaza Shangri-la Hotel. Of course, Speaker Joe de Venecia was there. I bumped into Rep. Eric Singson (2nd dist., Ilocos Sur) in the lobby, and he told me he believed that 162 members of the House, or more, were present at that caucus in the big ballroom as well as in the meeting rooms. If that’s so, how will the Opposition get the numbers to flesh out the 79 signatures needed to move the "impeachment" complaint up to the Senate?

I also see that many mayors and governors – if not most – are in town. In the old Marcos Bagong Lipunan days, local government officials used to troop into Metro to get their "guidelines" in thick envelops from then Metro Manila Governor and First Lady Superma’am Imeldific.

In politics, is there anything new under the sun?

Will GMA get "impeached?" Your guess is as good, or bad as mine.

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Former Department of Agriculture Secretary Arturo Yap, who resigned from the Cabinet several months ago, caught in a vise by the "Cesar Purisima" bunch, is obviously back with the President, his Cabinet rank clear if not clearly defined.

Last Sunday, when headed downtown in Shanghai, I got a call from Art, who remained faithful to GMA despite the humiliation of being slapped, along with his father, an upright Zamboanga businessman, with "tax evasion" accusation by the Bureau of Internal Revenue under then BIR Commissioner Willy Parayno – who later joined the defection group called the "Hyatt 10."

Art said that the President would be ringing me in half an hour on my cellphone. Sure enough, this writer was walking along Nanjing Road with my friends, William D. Go, Vice-Chairman of Chinatrust and Cesar O. Virtusio of Dresdner Bank, when La Presidenta called. My two companions didn’t hear our conversation since they had just popped into the most renowned department store in the city, what else but The Number 1 Department Store. (Bill bought a jacket there, although he resisted getting the one labelled Geordi Amoni, which sounds too much like Giorgio Armani.)

In any event, GMA sounded cheerful and upbeat about the economy (5 percent growth, she said), the implementing regulations for the Supreme Court approved EVAT, and her plans to send Filipino help for the disaster relief operations in New Orleans and Louisiana. More on what we discussed, I will not mention, except that she denied having "danced" in Ifugao costume.

By coincidence, Nanjing Road is a prime example of why China, once so drab and backward, has finally made the New Great Leap Forward to Progress. (Mao Zedong’s earlier Great Leap flopped miserably, causing the deaths of millions from starvation). It was Chairman Deng Xiaoping who saved China, from the disastrous, destructive Red Guards’ rampage, and the machinations of the former "Shanghai Gang", known today as the Gang of Four. After the Gang which had been led by Mao’s actress wife was toppled and arrested, Deng in the 1980s proclaimed the five modernisms, and steered that vast country towards market "Socialism" while still claiming the supremacy of the Communist Party. He boomed that "to become rich is glorious." The late Deng, born of a poor peasant family in Sichuan on 22 August 1904, declared: "It doesn’t matter what color the cat is, as long as it catches mice." He offered Hong Kong and Taiwan the pledge of their keeping their . . uh, capitalistic ways for 50 years if they "returned" to Mother China, under his "One Country, Two Systems" policy. Although he still gets blamed for the June, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, I don’t believe he ordered it. He was by then almost comatose in hospital, but propped-up propaganda-wise to take the rap.

Deng’s move to the market economy has boosted China towards becoming the next economic superpower. Nowhere is this more visible than on Shanghai’s Nanjing Road, acclaimed as "the first Street in China." Even historically this is true. Nanjing was the first commercial avenue after Shanghai was forced to become an Open Port in 1843 under the Treaty Powers, i.e. Britain, France, Japan and the USA. This, the busiest of Shanghai’s thoroughfares, stretches for nearly ten kilometers from The Bund to the Jin’an Temple. Lined with more than 360 grand cinemas, restaurants and shops, Nanjing is visited by over 1.5 million shoppers daily, earning an income more than 2,000 million Yuan annually.

It is a giant pedestrian street for a fourth of the stretch, with more than 500 big department stores. It’s a joy to walk along. If you’re too tired to walk, you can hop a little train which goes up and down on rubber wheels, at two Yuan (P14) a ride. There are cute trains labelled "Tiger Balm," "McDonalds," etc. On every side are luxury boutiques, upmarket shops, retail centers. On the street are the Sofitel Hotel, the Howard Johnson Plaza, the Ramada Plaza, the East Asia Hotel, the New World Emporium. The Orient Shopping Centre. McDonald’s. The "Shanghai Number 1 Dispensary," and Watsons. The ITOKIN department store. An immense Coca Cola Bottle, advertising, what else? Coke, US style. Pepsi Ads. GIORDANO’s. "Tom’s World". Gucci Shop. Mt. Blanc. At one corner in the plaza are bronze statues of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin at their Teheran Meeting. There’s even, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of China’s defeat of Japan, a cluster of bronze statues set up overnight. One honors Gen. Claire Chennault who led that redoubtable volunteer air force, "The Flying Tigers," with a bronze replica of a winged Tiger alongside Chennault. One statue has a Chinese 88th route army soldier, brandishing an AK-47, greeting his Soviet counterpart, waving the typical Russian tommy-gun. One has Venus de Milo – with arms, signalling "Time Out" perhaps for a Yao Ming basketball game. From glorious to glamorous to corny, that’s Nanjing Road.

For that matter, that’s Shanghai.

Nothing convinced me more vividly than this trip that China is on the march. And that, owing to our ceaseless bickering, we’re in the lurch.