Letting Erap Be Erap - Why And Why Not

Call the Aprodicio Lacquian caper the biggest wake-up call and, by most counts, the most defining moment so far of the embattled Estrada presidency.

Never before has President Estrada displayed such titanic fury, with much of the resulting fireworks spewing nonstop over radio and television all day Wednesday and well into the wee hours of the next morning.

Estrada had every reason to go ballistic. There was his chief-of-staff, just designated main custodian of his most intimate papers and secrets, cracking jokes at his expense and virtually confirming to all the world that, yes, Estrada has a serious drinking problem and his so-called "Midnight Cabinet" is no figment of some journalist's fertile imagination.

Laquian had touched the rawest nerve of all and he was promptly sent packing back to Canada. But not before being subjected to the most concentrated form of presidential abuse in Philippine history.

As if to recover lost ground, Estrada pre-empted the airwaves Wednesday night as few Presidents have done before. He was the solo guest of ABS-CBN's Dong Puno Live and the surprise phone-in participant on the rival GMA Debate program hosted by Oscar Orbos and Winnie Monsod.

Pre-taped earlier in the day in Malacañang, right under the magnificent Viennese chandeliers, the one-on-one with Puno was a masterpiece of presidential damage control worthy of Ferdinand Marcos or Fidel Ramos at least. Estrada made short shrift of Laquian, but only as a take-off point for a blitz against bigger targets, particularly in the media, and for yet another soulful retelling of the administration's commitment to the poor of the land.

But the biggest surprise of all came towards midnight as Debate was winding down a particularly spirited and partisan hour-long session on the question of whether the President had lived up to his inaugural-day promise to withhold special favors from relatives and cronies.

"We couldn't say no," said a GMA official of Estrada's sudden call from out of the blue to be given airtime over the phone.

To everybody's visible shock on screen, Estrada wasted no time launching a prolonged and bitter attack on Senator Raul Roco and Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Perfecto Yasay. The two arch-critics of the President had just delivered their final statements and what they had said provoked Estrada, who was evidently watching the show, to pick up the phone and give them a piece of his mind.

Never mind that Press Secretary Rod Reyes had earlier passionately taken up the cudgels for Estrada (via remote telecast) along with two loyal congressmen (Kalookan's Baby Asistio and Sorsogon's Francis Escudero) and a whole panoply of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office personnel who were at the packed TV studio in Quezon City.

Estrada pulled no punches, calling Roco and Yasay "liars" to their very faces. He reserved the sharpest words for Yasay, the man who had blown the whistle on the biggest insider-trading scandal ever to hit the Philippine Stock Exchange. Accusing Yasay of asking for a P1 million bribe, Estrada ended his spiel with a curse in Filipino: "My lightning strike you!"

The program having gone overtime by some 20 minutes, there were only a few seconds left to read the outcome of the night's poll survey: a lopsided 14,000 to 2,000 against the administration.

What did Estrada achieve in this longest day of his presidency?

In one fell swoop, the President cast aside the 41-day-old management system that had been put in place by Laquian to repair the serious damage inflicted by the ugly turf war between Executive Secretary Ronnie Zamora and then Presidential Management Staff head Lenny de Jesus. Zamora survived the purge while De Jesus was kicked upstairs as housing czarina.

Recruited by presidential relative and management guru Raul de Guzman and supported by the ascendant "classmates" faction represented by Finance Secretary Titoy Pardo and Trade Secretary Mar Roxas, the Laquian team was charged with the vital tasks of attending to Palace paperwork and keeping the Zamora-"Midnight Cabinet" alliance under reasonable control.

Laquian's boo-boo before the Manila Overseas Press Club played into the hands of the Zamora-Midnight Cabinet groups, practically restoring the primacy they enjoyed during the "Long March" to victory in 1998 and before De Jesus, reviled as the "Dragon lady," put up a rival faction.

What happens next to the shaken Pardo-Roxas tandem remains to be seen. "Estrada is back with his old buddies," says one analyst. "Laquian has given a bad name to technocrats and intellectuals as well as big businessmen who want to "repackage" or make Estrada acceptable to the bigger world."

As for Estrada's most unpresidential TV outburst, it's a chilling reminder that Estrada has a fiercely independent streak that no management guru, public relations handler or senior statesman can take for granted. For better or worse, the guy has a burning desire to be his own man.