Grandstanding vs stonewalling

These seem to be the buzz words of choice these days, the verbal equivalents of obscene gestures thrown at objects of particular and pervasive contempt.

Grandstanding, as you all know, is usually muttered in the same breath as "destabilization," "conspiracy," "political games," and "creeping impeachment" a.k.a. "serial impeachment."

Thus, President GMA hectors "certain Senators," among whom I’m certain must be counted Senate President Frank Drilon – let’s not be coy here, Ate Glow – to get back to more productive work and cease their grandstanding. She urges "certain" business groups, obviously referring to the Makati Business Club and its spokesman Bill Luz and not Donald Dee’s Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, to stop grandstanding and be part of the solution, not the problem. Palace insiders typically regard the hirsute Luz with the same disdain the Kennedy-era CIA reserved for the incorrigibly communist Che Guevara.

Press Secretary Toting Bunye walks out of a House budget hearing, exasperated at the grandstanding of Rep. Roilo Golez in asking irrelevant questions about the Garci tapes and Toting’s famous disclosure of the genuine and the spliced tapes. Rethinking the wisdom of his somewhat reckless action, and its obvious impact on his department’s niggardly budget which apparently still languishes near the bottom among all departments, Toting returned to the hearing room after lunch.

The Press Secretary confessed to "overreacting," and Roy accepted his proffered hand. Roy, in turn, did not pursue his line of questioning and the Press Office’s budget was, happily for its many, faithful and long-suffering workers, approved. In the end, it seemed to be a rare instance of a draw between the grandstander and the stonewaller.

Executive Secretary Ed Ermita’s press conferences and frequent ambush interviews are liberally sprinkled with references to grandstanding and abusive or disrespectful legislators. The word "grandstanding," we’ve noticed, has become part of the increasingly limited vocabulary of government apologists and spinmeisters, who perhaps not incidentally, have become noticeably scarcer and less accessible lately, as contrasted, say, with those hectic days of the impeachment saga when one could not seem to get them to, for God’s sake, forthwith vacate television studios and radio booths.

I hope it’s not waning stamina, much less a mortal fear of the marketplace of ideas. Or maybe the awful possibility of the word "pimp," a Nene Pimentel exclusive, being hurled against them by exercised debating opponents, strikes particular terror in those who could, albeit unfairly, be accused of merely mouthing pre-digested scripts. You know, less talk, less mistake?

On the other hand – in this argumentative country, there is always an other hand – the various groups that are keeping up the relentless assault on Fortress GMA routinely use the word stonewalling as a battering ram, usually in the same breath as "hiding the truth," "stealing an election," and "corruption."

The patron saint of one side, and the Great Satan of the other, happens to be one and the same person: National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales. Canonized by no less than Executive Secretary Ed Ermita, as he explained the rationale for Executive Order 464 which is criticized as elevating stonewalling to the level of national policy, Bert is portrayed as the paramount martyr to grandstanding solons, the innocent lamb sacrificed at the altar, the uncomplaining victim of heinous abuse only a few degrees below that perpetrated upon Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Anti-GMA diehards, however, have branded Bert as the quintessential symbol of stonewalling, the head circler of wagons against the truth. Unimpressed by his impending double bypass open heart surgery, they regard his predicament as self-inflicted and motivated by an inscrutable willingness to feed himself to the lions as he protects someone or some others whose stature evidently warrant not only his unstinting loyalty but also his unquestioning self-immolation.

The oust-GMA group scoff at accusations of a conspiracy, argue themselves blue in the face as to who is the destabilizer, and question everything from the No Permit No Rally policy to E.O. 464 before the Supreme Court. Naturally, the hearings in the House and Senate proceed despite the resort of some officials to E.O. 464 such as the missing Securities and Exchange Commission officials in the pre-need industry inquiry and the absent past and current Secretaries of Agriculture and the "wanted" Undersecretary Joc-Joc Bolante in the Senate fertilizer fund investigation.

It will also be recalled that in the North Rail project inquiry in the Senate, only an Assistant Government Counsel attended, who erroneously thought he was not covered by E.O. 464. He was soon disabused of that notion, when his wife called during the hearing to advise him that his office was being padlocked. The betting is that this official will soon be a former AGCC, if it hasn’t happened already.

Street protests continue as the demonstrators unabashedly defy the No Permit No Rally rule. The rally leaders seem to welcome being truncheoned and beaten, as long as their ordeal is recorded by TV news cameras. The rhetoric in these chaotic scenes has escalated, with GMA now being accused of going beyond stonewalling the truth and graduating to being an allegedly full-blown violator of civil and political rights.

Far from bringing down the decibel level of the political crisis, what we have is a classic case of the immovable object of oust-GMA fervor meeting the irresistible force of GMA’s determination to defend her incumbency as President of the Philippines. Something’s gotta give, obviously.

All in the administration are in the same No-More-Mr.-Nice-Guy page as Code One. The President means to stay. No amount of street protests or shadowy conspiracies led by a lean and hungry latter-day Brutus or Cassius will cause her to leave office.

At some point, the legions of the Stonewallers and the armies of the Grandstanders will have to engage on the field of battle until a victor emerges. Or, we’ll just have to hope that the contenders are struck by a bolt of lightning and realize that what’s at stake is bigger than both of them. If accommodation is not possible, then I suggest we settle in for a long and bumpy ride, with an uncertain destination.