If mischief’s afoot: Beware the Ides of the anti-Erap March! - BY THE WAY By Max V. Soliven

Late Monday night, the British Broadcasting Corporation rang me up from London to inquire whether any hints of "emergency measures" or "martial law" (the same thing) were wafting about in the night air. The peg for the BBC editor’s concern was President Estrada’s appeal for support from the armed forces during the turnover of command ceremonies in Fort Bonifacio last Sunday.

The interpretation, apparently, was widespread abroad that the Commander-in-Chief’s injunction to the military to preserve the Constitution meant "preserve me, too, at all costs!"

And what about that other possibility, as well, London inquired: "a coup?"

I yawned at the very idea, saying there was just too much posturing and barking going on, but the armed forces didn’t seem to be in ferment either way, nor the Philippine National Police.

If London called me up today, perhaps I might give them a different answer. But it’s still guesswork, aggravated by rumor and innuendo, rather than hard facts we have at hand. And yet . . . today’s announced "massive" anti-Erap rally, scheduled for this afternoon, is cause for concern. This is not because the planned demonstrations, touted to converge from two or three sides, might be huge (there’s still no guarantee the numbers of protesters promised can be mobilized). The really worrisome possibility is that the rallyists might be attacked by pro-Estrada mobs, also said to be converging on Metro Manila for a counter-demonstration.

Some hotheads in the President’s pangkat, we were told yesterday, have been trucking in pro-Erap or hakot-type workers and peasants from the provinces with the intent to overwhelm the protesters with superior numbers. This might not be an evil thing per se, but what if a clash is provoked or even "planned", with the "peaceful" demonstration deteriorating into street battles? Those who have been angrily calling Erap’s friends and loyalists a bunch of roughnecks and drunks should not be surprised if, indeed, they start playing rough.

In a town where rumor flies faster than a speeding bullet, the rumor – the balitang kapihan – is that local leaders have been enlisted to "send in" at least ten truckloads of . . . well, political scabs per province.

My advice to the pro-administration forces, if there’s still room left for contemplation, is to leave the protest marches alone. Let the indignant groups and the opposition militants have their "day in the sun." Who knows at this stage how many or how few they are? But to attempt to stifle protest and dissent with a heavy hand may result in converting the situation into a bloody shambles. After a riot, it's not only broken heads and broken limbs which may have to be patched up (or worse), but our civility as a nation. What is being whipped up, as tempers fray and words go harsher, is class struggle – a classic confrontation between "rich" and "poor." In the higher echelons of decision-making, it’s the consensus (but only discussed in secret) that Ilocos Sur Governor Luis "Chavit" Singson was mishandled – because he was underestimated. Singson proved tougher, more kamikaze-determined, and eloquent than those who had pooh-poohed him in the circle of cronies and gamblers dreamed. (They forgot his look-death-in-the-eye record during the "Crisologo Wars" which had turned Ilocos Sur into a charnel house in the late 60s and early 70s. They are now paying for their short memories.)

By the same token, President Erap – the "small town mayor" and brawler from San Juan (not just in the movies as Chavit was quoted as jesting) – should not be underestimated. If his critics and the opposition push his back to the wall, not giving him respite or an "out", he’ll come out slugging or resorting to desperate measures.

"Emergency measures"? A police crackdown? Today’s events, if mishandled, could even produce a reason. Or a manufactured "alibi."

* * *

Chavit Singson turned up yesterday at the Tuesday Club in the EDSA Plaza Shangri-La hotel to report that his eldest son, Richard, 36, had been "missing" since Saturday. Singson said that Richard had been on "drug rehabilitation" and might have been kidnapped – to be used against him to "prove" incriminating drug "connections." He went to the Bulong Pulongan media luncheon in the Westin Philippine Plaza Hotel to tell the journalists there the same thing, having been urged by friends and family members to announce that his son had "disappeared" before black propagandists and malicious spin-doctors jumped the gun on him.

"They’re harassing me right and left," Singson told us. "Death threats are being received by my people. They’re trying to destroy my businesses – for example, ‘bomb threats’ are frequently being called in to scare passengers off the buses in my bus company. Insinuations are also being made about my vehicles being utilized to ‘smuggle’ drugs and narcotics. I can already see the pattern of their smear campaign!"

Who are they? Chavit shrugs: "Who else?"

Singson says he is going to the Senate this morning, hoping to confront Mrs. Yolanda Ricaforte whom he had cited as the "auditor" planted by the Palace in his office to monitor and check up on the multimillion-peso "collections" from jueteng. He maintained that he expects Mrs. Ricaforte, who has just returned from the United States, to "deny everything." It would be only fair, Singson asserted, to let him go face to face with her in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

The Senate "drama", from day to day, has already been rating a higher viewership and radio audience than the famous Mexican telenovela Marimar in its heyday. From morning till night, in office and in homes, everybody seems to have eye and ear glued to a radio or TV set, and in the boulevards and carparks to car radios.

The buzz in the coffee shops is that when the two Presidential sons, San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada and Jude were . . . uh, "grilled" by the Senators, the duo were spoken to very politely, even deferentially, and treated with tender loving care. But when the Senators were cross-examining Chavit Singson, they were treating him like a "suspect" or a cornered "criminal" and not a witness or complainant. Did the televiewers and radio listeners "mistake" the mood of the Senators who roasted Singson? "Not so," almost all I encountered chorused. "They really gave him the third-degree and cut short his answers."

Right or wrong, padre, that’s the widespread public perception.

* * *

Congressman Roy Golez of Parañaque, who had dramatically leaped from the ruling LAMP to the opposition, albeit as an "Independent", also appeared at our coffee klatsch in EDSA to declare he had been "ousted as speaker." What? As "Speaker of the House of Representatives"? Someone at his elbow inquired with raised eyebrows. "No," Golez replied, "as Speaker at the 102nd Anniversary Celebration of the Club Filipino scheduled for November 6."

What happened, Roy Golez surmised, is that when some Club officers found out that he was the guest speaker, they simply cancelled the entire Anniversary Celebration itself. At this point, Club Filipino Chairman Emeritus and ex-BIR Deputy Commissioner Fortunato "Forting" Aguas arrived and exclaimed: "I didn’t know about that – I didn’t even know about the Celebration!" He promised Golez and the coffee crowd to "get to the bottom of this." What a society this is, ruled by paranoia, rumors, and "fear of offending."

Last Monday noon, I was one of the two guest speakers at the general membership meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP). The other speaker, my friend Miguel "Mike" Castro Enriquez, the Vice-President for Radio of GMA Network Inc. and President of RGMA Network, Inc., told the packed audience in the Grand Ballroom of the Inter-Continental Hotel that the day before the Singson appearance in the Club Filipino in which the Ilocos Sur governor publicly assailed the jueteng and tobacco tax "scandals" he (Mike) had received a telephone call from "somebody" in Malacañang. The official caller had testily asked Enriquez: "Are you going to broadcast the Singson press conference tomorrow?" The tenor of the message was: Better not. To which Enriquez said he retorted: "I certainly will!"

There are, of course, pressures from all sides. Whenever a journalist or opinion writer says something "good" about Erap, or critical of Chavit Singson, he or she also gets angry and indignant calls, e-mail, letters, and sometimes a public "spanking" by the self-righteous. As I’ve said, nobody is more fanatical in the belief of being holy, on the side of the Angels, and relentless in wielding the sharp sword (and sharp tongue) of "morality," "good," et cetera than the moral crusader. Thus the Crusaders of old used to massacre Muslims and other Infidels (and vice versa) with the battle-cry: "Deus vult!" (God wills it!).

God, indeed, speaks to men and women, but often in the whisper of conscience.