In the `Year of the Dragon,' will we be ruled by women's tears?

It's worse than the Yasay case. At least, the Securities and Exchange Commission clash was a dust-up between men -- a President versus an agency head (with a bit of a twist), Goliath bashing David.

But now, we know who's got the heaviest ammunition! Someone who can shed a woman's tears. How did Secretary Lenny de Jesus, in her role as pussy cat and not Dragon, retain her Cabinet post as Secretary of the Presidential Management Staff? On the verge of being ushered out, Ms. de Jesus wept a tidal wave of tears -- her eyes swollen kuno from crying -- and the Big Chief probably said: "Dear, dear, you can keep your job."

And that P9 billion post as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and vice chairman of the Presidential commission on mass housing? Will Lenny get to keep that, too?

Executive Secretary Ronnie Zamora, as a result, doesn't know what hit him. He's still ringing from being boxed about the ears. How dare Ronnie, a mere man, insult Lenny by precipitately announcing her coming "replacement"? Gee whiz. It's enough to drive a . . . uh, President to drink.

I won't invoke that famous old saying, "When at first the Devil doesn't succeed, he sends a woman." Since Eve offered Adam the poisoned apple, and he gulped, I guess the male gender was lost. Samson had his Delilah. Holofernes, afterwards known as the Headless General, had his Judith. (These examples are not profane, they are all in the Holy Bible.) The Allies for that matter, had their Mata Hari in World War I. All throughout history, I guess, there have been Madams du Barry, De Pompadour, and various femmes fatales -- and, I must repeat, fatal.

Mind you, we're not comparing the Crying Lady, Madam de Jesus, to such conniving and dangerous females of the past. This is the present. And we know that Sir Erap will someday muster up enough courage to withstand the gale of feminine sobbing. But when? If this government is to be based on the tear ducts of a woman, then, indeed, we'll truly be the Vale of Tears.

The Chinese lunar New Year, on February 5, ushers in the Year of the Dragon. Sanamagan. All this time, for the past year and a half, it was already the Year of the Dragon Lady. Another 12 months? Or another four and a half years?

Poor Dr. Aprodicio "Prod" Laquian, whom even Sir Erap had begun (testing the waters, not the tears) hinting would be the next PMS chief of staff, is now in limbo. Now, the way Presidential Spokesperson Jerry Barican (one of those alleged to belong to the You-Know-Gang-of-Four) is talking, Laquian -- who is being enticed to come back from Canada -- may be given a nebulous post called simply "chief of staff" of the President, without the enormous funds and large personnel back-up of the PMS.

Won't this put Laquian (despite Barican's soothing denials) in competition with Zamora? Won't it add another expensive and confusing "layer of government", when already there are so many "chiefs" in Malacañang. Laquian, if he were to fill a vacancy as head of the PMS, would fit comfortably into an empty slot. However, to glue on one more position doesn't seem to make sense. He may end up being the Presidential Doorman, whose main task is to open and close doors.

After all, Laquian has a Ph.D. in political science, major in urban studies from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass. He got his BA in public administration cum laude from the UP in 1959.

He's a professor of Community and Regional Planning in the University of British Columbia (UBC, Vancouver, Canada), teaching "masters and doctoral level" courses in Housing and Basic Urban Services. He was Director of the Centre for Human Settlements (UBC) from 1991 to 1998. Among his accomplishments was that he was "principal investigator" for a $5.8-million research project on metropolitan planning and governance focused on Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

The project was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency or CIDA. He is currently project director for two CIDA-funded projects, i.e. water management in Beijing and Tianjin ($826,000) and setting up urban planning schools in Sri Lanka ($750,000).

He was Deputy Director of Technical Services and Evaluation of the United Nations Population Fund from 1990-91. And so forth.

Come to think of it: Why not give Mass Housing and the planned Department of Housing to Dr. Laquian instead? Instead of Lenny, of course. If she wants PMS, she can't have Mass Housing. If she prefers Mass Housing, then she cannot have the PMS. She must choose.

In our Ateneo high school days, the worst form of reptile was considered the BUWAYA, the crocodile who wanted everything, and gobbled everything up. But that's when we were very young boys. Why is it that when boys and girls "grow up" into adulthood, being buwaya is no longer considered wrong?

People may start drawing awful comparisons. So, let's look at it with a careful eye.

You must have noticed the "breaking news" out of Quito, Ecuador -- a Latin American country with a population of 13 million and a standing army of 50,000 men.

Ecuadorian Indios (indigenous people) first stormed and occupied the Parliament building, then the Army took over led by General Carlos Mendoza and a Supreme Court Justice, Carlos Solorzano, to depose President Jamil Mahuad.

The Ecuadorean Congress then met in an emergency session Saturday and approved Vice President Gustavo Noboa as the nation's new "President". The Congress approved Noboa by 87 "yes" votes, two "no's", one abstention, and 34 legislators absent.

This vote was taken so that a military junta wouldn't be seen as having staged a coup d'etat, thus, hopefully, convincing the United States, other Latin American countries, and the European Union that an orderly and "constitutional" succession and "transfer of power" had taken place.

Can they get away with it? A kudeta is a kudeta, but even a watching world might just let something like this "it's-done-with-mirrors" ploy slide through. If the new regime doesn't curb the terrible 60 percent inflation, however, there may be renewed turbulence.

Now you know it's not beyond the realm of possibility that some would-be putchists might be planning along the same lines -- in other countries, of course.

According to our Ambassador in Santiago, Chile, Ma. Consuelo "Baby" Puyat-Reyes, the Philippine Honorary Consul Marcelo Avila, who operates under her jurisdiction, reported that the deposed President Mahuad has taken refuge in a foreign Embassy in Quito (not ours), "publicly accepted the will of the people, and asked the Ecuadorians to support the new government."

Ambassador Puyat-Reyes added, although it remains to be confirmed, ex-President Mahuad "may be flown to exile in Chile, where he has relatives."

On the other hand, the OEA (Organización Estados Americanos) and the governments of the US, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Peru continue to express themselves against the move to "change" the government in Ecuador, our envoy noted when transmitting Consul Avila's dispatch to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The "trouble" is not over, it seems. The third member of the earlier projected "junta" to rule Ecuador, Antonio Fargas, leader of the restive "indigenous Ecuadorians", may still stir up demonstrations anew -- this time against the fledgling Noboa government. The military is also skittish, since, in this strange drama, some of the colonels involved in the coup have been arrested and are being held in prison.

If so, it was an "imperfect" coup. But what's perfect among our fraternal brothers and sisters in South America, as in our volatile Filipinas? The Latin temper sometimes becomes the Latin distemper.

Those who are trying to shout down Interior and Local Government Secretary Fred Lim for his "shame the pushers" spray-paint campaign had better come out with a better idea, at least, instead of just condemning Lim and grandstanding.

For years, we, the public, felt helpless against the drug menace which has debilitated our young and destroyed the lives and careers of too many middle class and upper class executives and their family members who "sniff up" or stick needles into their systems sub rosa.

About 1.7 million Filipinos are already allegedly addicted -- and that may be a low figure. So, how do we fight the drug lords whose mighty financial gifts and hand-outs have suborned politicians, lawmen, lawyers and even judges? Those who loudly protest the "painting" campaign as violating human rights and the right of individuals to be considered innocent until proven guilty may have a point -- but, in the end, this ugly kind of war can't be won in our corrupt judicial system.

Lim, for all his "Dirty Harry" image, is at least striking out against the powerful Godzilla of drugs, wielding what looks like a kitchen knife against the overwhelming monster. The pity of it is that his supposed "allies," the lawyers and the God-fearing, are striking at Lim, and not the monster. What do they suggest ought to be done in place of Lim's "primitive" methods?

For years, there have been moaning and groaning and no victories. Anti-dangerous drug agents and anti-narcotics policemen, too often, have ended up on the drug czars' payroll. Sometimes the threat works: "You can end up very rich, or very, very dead." How can blindfolded Lady Justice, with her tiny scale, weigh up against such illegal and frightening arguments?

Lim, at least, is hacking away -- first, naturally, at the drug pushers. When you're combating a giant Octopus of crime, you've got to begin by cutting off and smashing its deadly tentacles, before you can get to the black heart and wicked eye of the giant.

This is the way New York City's Mayor Rudy Giuliani "tamed" crime in New York. First, he went after the street-corner blackmailers, the burly wash-your-car-windshield hoodlums. Then he insisted on repainting every broken window pane (it was called the "broken windows" approach). Then he went after the graffiti "artists" who wrought havoc on walls and subway trains. Relentless policemen and teams of "clean-up" men soaped off and scrubbed off those hideous graffiti (which lost souls persist in calling "art") which had defaced the surface of the Big Apple.

Today, where once was muggers' paradise and murder and mayhem reigned, we find a brawling but comparatively "safe" city. It wasn't a miracle the belligerent Giuliani performed -- it was accomplished through persistence, guts in the face of a hurricane of criticism, grit, and hard work. Now, Hillary Rodham Clinton has waltzed in and thinks she can take over New York state, trading in her fur muff as First Lady for a hat that shouts: "Senator."

Can Giuliani beat her? Nobody knows. But he's had one solid accomplishment tucked in his belt: making New York's "Fort Apache" a more-or-less peaceful village. He didn't do this by being a wimp, or a patsy, or a flake. Ungrateful New Yorkers (I guess it's a universal failing) even call him a "dictator", a "fascist", and a "bully." All I know is that six years ago, New York City was No-Man's and No-Woman's-Land, with girls clutching their handbags for dear life, and men inching along the streets and boulevards, fearful of the sudden leap from the dark or the knife and gun of the mugger and street hood. I had American friends in Pennsylvania, who had never dared visit the Big Apple, plaintively asking me: "Is it safe to go to New York?" And they lived only six hours' drive away!

Lim's not Mr. Perfect or Mr. Nice Guy, and he's got his faults. But he's trying to do his job. Let's can the kibitzing for the moment and give him -- and ourselves -- a break.

The late, great Arsenio H. Lacson, the mayor who balanced the budget and cleaned up Manila in his day, once groaned: "I feel like a dope in shining armor." Lim must by now be feeling the same way. And what's more, his armor's only made of tin.