Scavenging

The day after the Supreme Court threw out the people’s initiative petition, the electoral season began for former president Joseph Estrada.

Through his lawyer Rufus Rodriguez, Estrada made known a list of names that was supposed to be a senatorial ticket. The very next day after announcing that list, Estrada revised it: dropping Sen. Panfilo Lacson, apparently because he was preparing for a mayoral run in the City of Manila.

Then the former president began flip-flopping on the matter of his wife Loi running for re-election or having, instead, his son, JV Ejercito run. Then again, maybe both of them will run – although that might invite suspicion that the former president was scrimping on his electricity bills by resettling his extended family in Senate premises.

Last Monday, Estrada was allowed to leave his vacation house to visit his mother. That event quickly transformed into a party convention of sorts as the faded stars of Erap loyalists streamed into the former president’s Greenhills home.

Everybody who was anybody during Estrada’s abbreviated presidency seemed to be there – except, strangely, the majority of names on the Estrada List.

Most notable among those who were not there was the tandem of Senate President Manuel Villar and Senator Ralph Recto. The two senators, up for reelection, were included in the first version of the Estrada List. But neither have categorically declared they are jumping the administration ship to align with yesterday’s people.

Most notable among those who were not on the list but mysteriously materialized at the Estrada home was Sen. Manuel Roxas.

Roxas has found himself in a rather delicate political situation. He is allied with Sen. Franklin Drilon and the small band of Liberal Party politicians that broke from President Arroyo during the flustered political maneuvers of July 8, 2005.

The Drilon faction is currently appealing before a Comelec ruling that declared that while the former Senate President might still be the legal president of the LP, his term has expired. The Comelec ruled that the LP must elect a new president this month.

Until that matter is settled, the LP is stymied. It cannot conclude alliances and cannot announce a senatorial slate.

Which is not much of a loss.

For crying out loud, the elections are half a year away. It is always unwise to announce candidates in November. That will make their next Christmas very expensive, indeed.

At any rate, it appears that Roxas’ visit to the Estrada residence did not yield a firm alliance. A few hours after, Estrada was issuing an invitation to freshly resigned Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz to join the former president’s senatorial lineup.

I will not be surprised if, in the coming days, Estrada will revise that list again and issue invitations to other people who, like Nonong Cruz, might have never allowed the thought of seeking an elective post perturb their day.

But the more he works and reworks that list, the evident it will be that the former president is scavenging for allies – not so much to define the nation’s future as to provide the beleaguered Erap some political leverage against the possibility of conviction for the heinous crime he now faces.

Why is Erap apparently so engrossed with this business of making lists?

The obvious answer is that he is not known to fancy doing crossword puzzles. And so he passes his time in detention drawing up lists.

But that is too facile an explanation.

The List, of course, has the effect of producing a news event. Unworthy as the exercise might be at this time, it does feed the political reporters with a story. And like a herd, the reporters predictably congregate around the List, interviewing those whose name appear on them and grinding from nothing a political story that runs for days and days.

More than that, the production of the List yields for Erap the semblance that he remains a major powerbroker, a kingmaker of sorts, who with mere pencil and paper can determine the composition of the next Senate.

That is a semblance easy to sell. What dares call itself a "united opposition" is actually a patchwork of disparate personalities with no single shared vision. It has no weightier center-of-gravity than a man deposed from the highest post by a population that felt itself victimized by his presidency.

What is the practical value of this List?

Surely it does not signal the birth of a new political party. Estrada’s Partido ng Masang Pilipino does not exist beyond the boundaries of San Juan. It has no elected public officials except Estrada’s wife and sons.

What the List tells us is that alliances of convenience – the bane of our politics – is now sinking to new lows.

Surely it does not announce the birth of a new vision for the nation. The List is remarkable for its reliance on celebrity-driven politics – the font of the increasing idiocy of our civic culture.

Former senator Tito Sotto, who has lately been behaving like a candidate, says that the former president commands the loyalty of 30 percent of the electorate – so that while Estrada might not be in a position to finance the campaign costs of an entire senatorial ticket, those loyal to Estrada might transfer their loyalty to candidates he endorses. That is a rather unseemly analysis. The whole logic of celebrity-driven electoral politics, which the List celebrates (and exacerbates), is the non-transferability of fan loyalties.

The goal of this premature list-making is to threaten to capture the Senate – an increasingly dysfunctional and unproductive institution.

By populating a dysfunctional and unproductive institution with even more dysfunctional and unproductive celebrities, the end result is to make effective governance unlikely into the foreseeable future. For which the principal losers will be all of us.