The 'new' Estrada - Why And Why Not

Are we witnessing the reinvention of a "new" Joseph Estrada?

Going by last week's roller-coaster aftermath of the March 8 near-shutdown of the Philippine Stock Exchange, Malacañang appears to have taken one too many steps backward, evidently with the hope of making two or more steps forward sometime in the future.

The sudden attack of humility, some say fear of dire political consequences, seems a bit uncharacteristic of the normally onion-skinned and combative Estrada presidency. Take the big turnaround on how to handle the pesky Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Perfecto Yasay Jr., who was accused of pushing the stock market into the brink of collapse.

One moment there was the furious Estrada, egged on by sycophantic legal advisers, threatening to file charges of economic sabotage and to summarily suspend Yasay from office, and in the next moment word comes out that the culprit would be allowed, in mock Dylan Thomas fashion, to "go gently into the good night" of retirement come March 25th.

That was just the first of more concessions or retreats from unbending hard-line positions previously taken. Faced with a March 20th nationwide transport strike over the impending road-users' tax, Malacañang quickly announced that it was "not a good time" to implement the tax, assuming that the gung-ho legislators would still insist on passing the measure.

Anticipating even greater danger posed by last week's skyrocketing of world oil prices, Estrada confessed powerlessness to buck the tide, but promised to "even go down on my knees" to beg the local oil companies for a smaller increase. Thus, what would have been as much as P3 per liter increase was whittled down to "just 80 centavos," according to the President's jubilant mission-accomplished statement.

"This is just death by a thousand cuts," sniffed one oil industry critic who noted that there have been some 9 price increases over the last few months. "Instead of one or two big jolts, the blow is inflicted centavo by centavo. But this has set a bad pattern showing a president sometimes threatening, but more often begging, before a supposedly deregulated industry. Why was oil degulated in the first place if government has to intervene at each and every turn of the very volatile market?"

From Yasay to road users' tax to oil prices, Estrada's retreat binge culminated last Saturday in total revocation of the Norberto Manero pardon. Curiously enough, this tacit admission of a colossal political and legal fiasco which has badly damaged Estrada's credibility did not come with any purge of the Office of the Executive Secretary and the Board of Pardons.

And as if to drive home the new message of turning the other cheek, the President told his colleagues at the Movie Workers' Foundation, Inc. 26th anniversary that "criticisms don't matter to me anymore." He also used the occasion to publicly advise fellow showbiz personalities who are in politics or who plan to enter politics to become role models and "not become symbols of bad behavior."

Who's behind the "new" Erap?

Much of the credit for Estrada's apparent shift to sobriety and pragmatism has been attributed to the ascendant power group led by Finance Secretary Titoy Pardo, Secretary Mar Roxas and Bangko Sentral chairman Paeng Buenaventura. All three have been energetically reaching out to everybody with the good news that Estrada is a "changed man" who has learned from his mistakes. Some critics however insist that they merely account for yet another power-hungry faction that will accelerate, not the success but the disintegration, of the beleaguered administration.

Pardo of Seven-Eleven and Wendy's fame is the very amiable public, if toothy, face of this so-called "classmates" faction composed of Estrada's former Ateneo High School classmates and backed up by certain big business and foreign groups identified with the Marcos and Aquino regimes.

The declared purpose of this faction is to put some method into the prevailing disarray of the administration and make it compliant with the strict house-keeping demands of the World Bank and foreign investors. A parallel objective, it has been bruited about, is to supplant or at least curtail the "unwholesome" influence of the President's so-called "midnight cabinet" made up of favored taipans, gambling tycoons and provincial warlords.

Internally, the rise of this classmates' group has been at the expense of the two warring factions, that of now-Housing chairman Lenny de Jesus and Executive Secretary Ronnie Zamora, which held sway in Malacañang until recently. Displaced by the Canadian import and new chief-of-staff Aprodicio Lacquian, De Jesus has been kicked upstairs to a cozy job. Zamora survives under rather diminished circumstances. Particularly galling is that Estrada sometimes refers to his Cabinet as "led by Secretary Pardo" instead of the Executive Secretary who's traditionally called the "Little President."

Next showing: The Zamorites versus the classmates.