Count your blessings - SKETCHES by Ana Marie Pamintuan

Whew! Let’s congratulate each other for surviving Christmas 2000.

Though it’s particularly tough to scrounge for good news these days, here’s my annual exercise of positive thinking about life in these islands:

First, despite the capital flight and scandal after scandal, the economy managed to grow, inflation remained at single-digit level and exports were up. I know, I know, the deficit has ballooned to monstrous proportions, the peso is at its lowest ever and fuel prices are at their highest, but I’m trying to see a half-full glass, this being the season of hope and joy.

Second, the nation is divided but the fight is being waged by lawyers, not soldiers. In the streets the protests are still generally peaceful, even during confrontations between opposing groups.

Third, we’re trying to make democracy work – through the impeachment process, or through the President’s resignation, which we must repeatedly emphasize is allowed under the Constitution.

Fourth, we did celebrate Christmas yesterday. People flocked to churches, families gathered for feasts (more modest than in previous years), gifts were exchanged (also more modest) and children wore new, itchy clothes. There was laughter, there was love. Traffic was heavy around churches and malls.

Fifth, we’re preparing to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Sixth… I give up.

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Maybe it’s easier to boost President Erap’s spirit in what must be the worst time of his life. I know people in show business who swear that he is a good man. He may be a bad President and husband (no, the show biz people didn’t tell me that), but they swear he’s a man with a big heart, loyal to friends, kind to the downtrodden. They tell me Erap shares his blessings, that he’s generous to a fault and has helped a lot of people since his days as a movie star.

In his darkest hour, the President can still count his blessings. He has his First Lady – the one and only, as he is wont to say – who is standing by her man, for richer or poorer, for better or worse. If women’s groups think she’s a disgrace to the gender, then so be it, as far as First Lady Loi Ejercito is concerned.

As far as I can gather, the President can still count on his true friends who go back a long way: Fernando Poe Jr. and Dolphy. They’ll always be his friends, wherever this impeachment process takes him.

And as far as I can gather, the other women in the President’s life (those he acknowledges, anyway) are also standing by their man. Some guys have all the luck.

President Erap still has almost all his Cabinet members, his military chief of staff and national police chief, and his party mates are still in control of the House of Representatives. And I don’t see any wavering among his allies in the Senate, although Sen. Ramon Revilla gave us a pleasant surprise by voting to allow Equitable PCIBank senior vice president Clarissa Ocampo to testify last Friday. If this is the way Revilla votes, let’s have more of his waking (I didn’t say lucid) moments, please.

The President has a powerhouse defense team. Those lawyers are worth every cent they’re being paid. (Who’s paying?) I’m not even taking it against Jose Flaminiano, former Manila city prosecutor, for making us wait an eternity for Ocampo’s testimony because of his numerous objections last Friday. He was doing his job, and he was doing well for a defense lawyer, given the surprise bombshell testimony.

President Erap is still adored by his masses, especially when he goes around bringing Christmas gifts and treating them to lechon baka, lechon baboy and lechon manok (roast calf, pig and chicken). And he should thank his lucky stars that he still hasn’t keeled over from all that cholesterol.

If it’s any consolation to him, the text destabilizers took a break from Erap jokes on Christmas Day. Instead they sent out Christmas greetings, mostly gloomy.

With such blessings, maybe President Erap did have a merry Christmas after all, Clarissa Ocampo’s testimony be damned.

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As for myself, when I wasn’t cooking or scavenging for good news to write about over the weekend, I was reading Impeachment Q & A, the book just published by the University of the Philippines Law Complex, edited by Professors Carmelo Sison and Florin Hilbay. Get yourself a copy – it could give you a better understanding of the drama that has so intruded into our lives.