Erap's pawn or Dadong's daughter? - Why And Why Not

Perhaps President Estrada just got carried away last Saturday when he said he was thinking of "anointing" Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as his successor in 2004. Or this could have been nothing less than a calculated indiscretion to stir up trouble between the playing-safe Vice President and her antsy partymates in the Lakas-NUCD coalition; perhaps also among Estrada's restive allies in the LAMP organization he is said to disdain.

His exact motives apart, the President appears to be resorting to the old reliable method of poking at some other hornet's nest in order to shift merciless public attention away from his humpty-dumpty presidency. Putting Little Gloria on the spot certainly fits the bill.

Now it's the Vice President's turn to squirm and prove her political womanhood. Lately under heavy pressure from friends and allies to leave the Estrada Cabinet and assume command of the Lakas as its presumed standard bearer in 2004, she may have run out of excuses to stay out of the line of fire.

By hanging on to her post as Secretary of Social Work and refraining from even the most innocuous criticism of the administration, according to some observers, she's in grave peril of becoming political irrelevant. True, she may retain her high popularity ratings (far higher than Estrada's) over the short term period, but she could well lose the mantle of a genuine opposition candidate in the upcoming presidential sweepstakes.

There are also other risks like Estrada eventually dumping her (for Ping Lacson, for instance) or LAMP imploding (the Angara faction purged or storming out) and his endorsement amounting to a kiss of death in the end. Indeed, she can't keep Lakas forever on a string and she could be doing some presidential dark horses (i.e. Fidel Ramos, Raul Roco and others) a big favor by ceding the political high ground to them by default.

Juxtapose this with the obvious and so far effective strategy of playing ostrich (burying her head under the sand) and you can imagine the contradictory waves that are clashing within Little Gloria's brain.

True, being segurista worked wonders for Estrada when he was FVR's Vice President. Estrada just kept turning his cheeks to accommodate all the brickbats hurled in his direction. Not the least of the Ramosian demolition efforts was Estrada's unceremonious sacking from the anti-crime task force and the all-out effort to tar him with the Kuratong Baleleng massacre.

But Estrada's great success, as it turned out, owed more to FVR losing his cujones in that classic confrontation with Cory Aquino and Cardinal Sin (Na-chacha siya, as some pundits put it) than to the Man from San Juan's genius. Estrada was just plain lucky. Had FVR pulled off what would had been the biggest gamble of his life, many observed, Estrada would have sheepishly stepped aside, preserved himself by seeking another vice presidential term or fallen off the political stage for good.

The consensus was that the 1998 race was virtually over that fatal January day when FVR picked Joe de Venecia as his sacrificial lamb. Estrada was so far ahead he was very much aware only the unseen foreign superpower could derail his steady march towards Malacañang; hence that shameless pact with the devil on the Visiting Forces Agreement.

What the supposedly more astute Aquino and Ramos couldn't deliver, the then-extremely popular Estrada turned over to the Americans on a silver platter by brazenly selling out his leftist and nationalist supporters, few of whom ever raised a squeak.

Although Estrada profusely insists that he has no plans beyond 2004, this is probably a direct consequence of the steep decline in his popularity ratings and the country sinking ever deeper into political instability and economic disaster.

Given such shockers as the scandal-ridden stock market being abandoned wholesale by foreign investors, oil prices rising to the unthinkable $30 per barrel level and thousands of dollar-earning Overseas Filipino Workers being sent home from Japan, it's obvious that Estrada will be spending much of the next few weeks and months in the bunker. Remember, too, that the bloody Mindanao situation deteriorates by the day and it might not be too long for all bets to be off on the Estrada presidency.

But back to Little Gloria whose one and only guru has been Diosdado Macapagal, the would-be-reformer who missed his chance for eternal glory by losing his reelection bid to one named Ferdinand Marcos.

Unlike Little Gloria who's lovey-dovey with Malacañang, supposedly for mutual advantage, her old man was done the great favor of being shunned by President Carlos Garcia and thrown to the wolves. He took his lumps and spent the next four years literally campaigning in the wilderness, thereafter exacting sweet revenge on the imperious but naïve Garcia.

Indeed, Little Gloria's brutal choice comes down to bravely taking risks as her go-for-broke father once did or being humored as crown princess to a crumbling presidency that could well drag her down to the mire.