Is the repackaged Erap really new? - Gotcha

If they know what's good for city tourism, Cebu cops should book the cabbie whom three US sailors mauled. He was trying to rip them off. He admitted to investigators that instead of running his taximeter, he tried to stick them with an P800-fare for a short ride to a nightclub. Contracting fares is against the law.

If a man rescues a damsel in distress from, say, a bag-snatcher, would cops charge him with physical injuries and let the thief go?

A new, repackaged Joseph Estrada claims he no longer lets critics get his goat. Handlers say he missed the National Press Club Gridiron Night for security reasons-not because he didn't wish to watch himself satirized. The Cabinet economic coordinating council is appealing to businessmen and churchmen to give Estrada a second chance. They claim he has changed his leadership style and is now willing to listen to their complaints instead of dismissing them as destabilizers. They cite as proof his January meeting in Tagaytay with foreign fund managers and his cancellation of Norberto Manero's conditional pardon.

ECC's Jose Pardo, Mar Roxas and Rafael Buenaventura believe they can teach an old dog new tricks. They think that by guiding his every move, Estrada not only can regain his popularity but, more importantly, transform himself into one of RP's best Presidents. Sadly for them, they cannot hide or anesthesize past events that continue to haunt Estrada.

Three public deals inked before Estrada's supposed remaking have surfaced in recent days. A bidder who backed out is asking why the National Irrigation Administration suddenly raised a Tarlac project's official cost estimate from P435 million to P701 million, thus allowing presidential adviser Len Oreta to win with a P757-million bid. Senate Minority Leader Tito Guingona has exposed Malacanang's attempt to award thousands of hectares of Nueva Ecija land via "amicable settlement" with a court litigant. And a losing bidder is questioning the grant of a firetruck supply deal to a higher bidder who happened to be "sponsored" by Estrada's showbiz friends.

Pardo, Roxas and Buenaventura can always claim that these deals were attempts by lower bureaucrats to pull a fast one. Estrada may have learned about the deals the way everybody else did -- from the papers. Still, the lack of cures for anomalies leaves Estrada open to suspicion that he hasn't changed -- that he prefers his walang kamaganak-walang kaibigan vow to be mere rhetoric and not policy.

No attempt has been made to make the NIA explain its increase of an approved estimate. Estrada's spokesman merely said there was no conflict of interest because Oreta is presidential adviser on economic zones, not on infrastructure. Estrada merely cancelled the Nueva Ecija deal without bothering to charge, much less castigate, whoever it was in Malacanang who tried to pull a trick. Instead of having his pals and the budget office investigated, he ordered a rebidding of the firetruck deal that the complaining lower bidder should have won.

More frustrating perhaps for Pardo, Roxas and Buenaventura are not past sins but present signs that Estrada won't mend his ways. He is accusing SEC chairman Perfecto Yasay of destroying the stock market instead of focusing on his pal Dante Tan's reported price manipulation, which started the whole mess. It seems Estrada still believes everything has to do with Yasay's personality, not the impropriety of his four phone calls to the quasi-judicial agency head last November to intercede for Tan. Similarly, he seems to think that throwing Manero back in prison would solve the problem of human rights abuses. and doesn't see the danger of creating more Maneros by recruiting 35,000 new armed civilian fighters of communist and Moro rebels.

Then there are the measures Estrada continues to avoid on other issues. Experts have suggested drastic cuts in import duties on crude oil and taxes on refined products to bring down fuel costs. Estrada lets his handlers repeat the lie that government will lose money for livelihood and infrastructure programs. Yet there's the P42-billion congressional pork to more than make up for the oil revenue loss. At the Charity Sweepstakes Office, he kicked out board directors who were questioning his frequent requests for money, and replaced them with friends of his immediate kin.

That's why reactions to Estrada's new, improved initiatives aren't what Pardo, Roxas and Buenaventura desire. Foreign fund managers still fled RP. Church leaders are wary of new abuses 35,000 village toughies will commit. Investors are still holding back despite Estrada's promise to the World Bank to wipe out corruption before the end of his term. And the latest survey gave him a mere one-percent net performance rating, down from an already worrisome five percent last December.

INTERACTION. Ed Nibungco, nyct.com: Erap's confrontational mien (Gotcha, 11 Mar. 2000) is how he's always been, so we shouldn't wonder why he behaves that way. We rewarded with Presidency a person who broke rules taught by parents, teachers, priests.

He's getting a spanking now, Ed.

Eleanor R. Laquian, Arlegui, Mla.: Spokesman Jerry Barican does not report to me and I have no appointment as presidential media adviser.

You mean he's all alone in the snake pit, Eleanor?

Eli Garnace, earthlink.net: Past weeks showed that PSE isn't a place to entrust money. The one commodity PSE failed to sell-buy? -- was confidence. The US financial (stock, bond, money, etc.) market is stable because of confidence in a system -- including my company -- which investors themselves manage.

Here, Eli, mere appointees play with our SSS and GSIS money.

Romel Nucum, edsamail.com: I agree with reader Cornelius Cruz (Interaction, 8 Mar. 2000) that FVR might still be president had Cory Aquino and Cardinal Sin not intervened in Cha-Cha. He survived the Asian crisis with the help of competent advisers. Give Erap a chance. He'll know how to handle it as long as he has the right persons.

No comment, Romel, no comment.

Thank you, Angel Bulauitan, Victor Gaudencio, Ed & Bing Joaquin, Monsi Serrano, Roy Azarcon, Jesus Bernal.

YOUR BODY. Bone marrow transplant is ineffective when breast cancer has spread to other organs, the New England Journal of Medicine reports from a US-wide study. For more, visit cnn.com/health.

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