Cardinal's last hurrah? Political landscape whirls

It was sad, piercingly painful looking at Jaime Cardinal Sin Friday at the EDSA Shrine as he went about his chores. When seated before the Mass, the visage that once swept a room or a hall with priestly luminosity now hang with a grave melancholy. If I may be pardoned a figure of speech, Cardinal Sin Friday looked like a great St. Bernard, stricken with illness, jowls loose and hanging, his gaze fixed wanly in space as in a reverie. When Cardinal Sin finally rose to say Mass, he had many wondering, including this writer, whether he could make it.

The Cardinal was sick, very sick, you could see that. Time came when he had to walk unattended around the altar table, and he hobbled. His altar assistants came close, eyed His Eminence with some alarm, as he walked, each step negotiated as tough he bore a crushing weight on his shoulders. During the sermon, the Cardinal admitted he had grown old and sick. His knees were two knobs of lead that now denied him normal use of his legs. And yet, the fight was still in him.

It made us go back to Victor Hugo (Les Miserables) who said: "When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age." And yet, and yet, the physical toll of aging and illness was there. And you couldn't help but switch to what General Charles de Gaulle said when he too, past the age of 75, said with the knowledge of the passing years: "La vieillesse, c'est un naufrage." Old age is a shipwreck.

And so it is as you look at probably the most popular and most saintly pope ever, John Paul II. How can he travel, this Supreme Pontiff?

Everything in him had started to crumble like broken masonry. His hands shivered with Parkinson's disease. In his last visit to Egypt, he barely could move a muscle on his face, staggering forward ever so slowly on his staff, his eyes peering as though from the narrowest of slits. And yet, it was this very weakness that radiated strength. And so it was with Jaime Cardinal Sin. Twice the Manila archbishop stopped, sprinkling incense from his urn close to the edge of the Shrine altar. There was the danger he would lose his balance and fall.

But he moved again, however so agonizingly.

When finally, he had to deliver his sermon, he said the things he had to say, as though he knew or had a feeling that time was running out. The Grim Reaper seemed to have made his presence felt in a far corner. The Cardinal may have had the weakest voice at the EDSA Shrine that Friday, but what he said came like Thor pealing a thunderbolt: "I will be your pastor fighting for freedom to the last breath of my life, up to the last drop of my blood, up to the last ounce of energy of my body. Our strength is from the Lord."

I do not know how President Joseph Estrada would have felt if he had been there at the EDSA Shrine. Erap Estrada, who should have awarded the five Freedom Awards and concluded the 14th anniversary rites with a speech, ducked it and went to Mayon instead. Well, the Cardinal had some stinging words for the president and his administration. The Filipino people, he said, "are close to hopelessness and despair as we confront so much evil in our society -- corruption in high places, divisions and rebellions in our poverty."

The Cardinal's blade dug in deeper: "We talk about corruption in public office, crony capitalism in business, patronage politics and whirlwind governance without any direction. What are we doing?"

We wonder what President Joseph Estrada would have replied if he were there. This verily was the Church confronting the State, the spirit confronting the sword. Strong and fighting words these, and they came from a physical derelict of a priest who would have reminded you of what T.S. Eliot said but it did not: "I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled." The Cardinal's sotana still flared with the dignity of his high office.

This time, the program did not call on former president Cory Aquino to formally speak, although she uttered some stirring remarks of gratitude to the Filipino people when she accepted EDSA's first Freedom Award conferred posthumously on Ninoy Aquino. But very clearly, aside from the Freedom Awards, it was Jaime Cardinal Sin who carried the day. As he carried the night 14 years ago when gently he called on the Filipino citizenry to set up a human shield to protect Juan Ponce Enrile and his failed mutineers.

Will Jaime Cardinal Sin be around at the 15th EDSA anniversary rites next year?

Just two weeks ago, I had interviewed him for the TV special EDSA 2000. And you knew, somehow you knew the tides had dangerously dipped. For he could not smile anymore, and raise his voice anymore, he who could once roar with a laughter that bounced from wall to ceiling, slap the table as a hilarious joke hit home, he who once told me with a mischievous but portentous twinkle in his eye in those yon years when the dictatorship was at high tide: "You know, Teddy, that Imelda -- she will be the undoing of our country."

Harris, Black & Associates just days ago came out with a Metro Manila survey that radically altered the political landscape of our country. That is, if the survey -- taken February 10-16 -- stands on solid ground. Would you believe it? If a three-cornered election were held today, pitting President Joseph Estrada against Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Sen. Raul Roco, GMA would win with 40 percent. But this time there is a presidentiable breathing on her back: Senator Roco with 35 percent.

President Joseph Estrada would lose by a dismal 14 percent. Gahd!

This means if the HB & A survey can be projected nationwide, the president is not only a lameduck, but clinging on to power with his fingernails. The slightest shove can send him hurtling into space. Once Erap Estrada had Concord (Constitutional Correction for Development) as a blackjack. A very powerful blackjack. With it, a compliant and corrupt Congress could alter the Constitution, replace the presidential system with a parliamentary system. If not that, pour voodoo into the Charter's provisions, lift or extend congressional, gubernatorial and other terms. Unlock another door so President Estrada could remain in power.

The president swung Concord like a cowboy's lariat in a gigantic effort to rope in the Filipino citizenry. This was his biggest mistake. Particularly when he argued that selling lands, public utilities and media to the foreigner 100 percent would extricate the nation from poverty. He did not know the Filipino people. They fought back and they had the backing of the Church, citizens' groups, the peasantry, labor organizations. Everybody. Even Erap's mahirap rose in rebellion against Concord. The president beat a complete retreat.

Concord is now dead as a dodo. Any attempt to revive it would touch off Sturm und Drang, a deadly tempest.

And so the president will have to end his term in the year 2004, assuming the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse do not intervene before then. The peril before us is this. As the presidency weakens, as the perception of the presidency is that of a broken dilapidated drum, the institutions of democracy will falter and continue to falter, and there could be a rising clamor for his resignation. The talk of snap elections is in the air.

There is of course the possibility the president can hang on. This will leave the road wide open for presently weak and fragmented opposition parties to regroup, reform and strengthen their ranks. Or political parties, mainstays and leaders of LAMP, the party in power will bolt and break away, join the opposition or set up their own party. Nobody wants to be left with a sinking ship.

The stunning surprise of the HB & A survey however is that Senator Roco has moved within five percentage points of Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo. Now, the Senator has very powerful cards to play, and he has been playing them. Where GMA remains silent, Senator Roco can pre-empt the lead voice of the opposition by raining political shot and shell on the president on almost every issue. And the issues today are powerful and compelling.

A GMA holding on to the coattails of the president would still be viable if there were no Senator Roco around. So the fight for presidential succession is now between Gloria and Raul. A Gloria endorsed by the president to be LAMP's presidential candidate in 2004 would be like shoving her head into the lion's mouth. If she moves now or moves soon out into the wide blue opposition yonder, she will remain in the lead. If she procastinates, she will be buried under an avalanche of charges she is an opportunist and has no leadership qualities. Timing is everything. In politics, if you miss the lead wave, you miss the whole shebang.

Whatever. The whole thing promises to be very exciting.