Damn the torpedos

Let me say it again: In the Ping Lacson probe, the Senate is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t.

The upper chamber has no choice, really, but pursue the "inquiry" to the very end – until Col. Victor Corpus runs out of witnesses to parade, every document is scrutinized, every scrap of testimony heard. To cut short the inquiry would provoke cries of "whitewash."

To "convict" Lacson, their fellow Senator, is also possible. The Senate is only supposed to be pursuing the investigation "in aid of legislation." In the end, the matters dredged up will still have to be referred to our courts. That’s the way things work in our democracy – such as it is.

If those who resent the system we have want to drastically revise matters, they’ll have to stage a real revolution, not a zarzuela like "People Power II" or EDSA DOS – or even the subsewith pro-Erap EDSA TRES. A true revolution will, well (what else?) "revolutionize" everything, revamp the government, the police and the military, dismantle our present courts and establish new ones in the revolutionary mode, kick out all bureaucrats (the ones who really run, and sometimes abuse, the government, not – as fable and media-viewpoint would have it – those transient Cabinet members who come and go).

Until this revolution takes place (there is no such animal, by the way, as a "bloodless revolution"), we’ll have to live with the system we have, unsatisfactory though the Civil Society, COPA, liberals, crusading lawyers and scribes, and leftwing cause-oriented groups may decry it. For decades, in this column and in the speeches and writings of many others, we hoped that our people could experience a "Revolution of the Heart." Yet, as our morals erode and our education system, particularly in the public schools, disintegrates into sloth and silliness, such inspiring prospect of universal change of heart becomes less and less possible by the day. The French novelist and thinker, Victor Hugo, the author of Les Misrables (which was hyped into a hit musical on Broadway and London’s West End), started out as a conservative in his youth but became a radical in his old age. This was probably because the weight of his idealistic frustrations bore so heavily on him that he came to the belief that only violent change would be meaningful.

In our case, we must persist, disturbed and disappointed though we may be. For once an armed mob takes over, we don’t know where the violence and destruction will end.

* * *

Another thing we pundits have been saying over the years – long before "Rosebud" and her va-va-voom revelations – is that the corrupt Philippine National Police (before that called the "Integrated National Police" and the "Philippine Constabulary") must be purged. Sounds great. But where to begin and where to conclude? If we manage, by some miraculous feat, to single out the rotten apples and throw them out of the barrel, will this mean that the rest of the apples will be saved? The old American axiom is that "one rotten apple rots the entire barrel." Those rotters have been in the police barrel for so long that almost all in that proverbial barrel must, by now, already be corrupted.

In the military as in the police establishment, the first thing a crooked superior officer does is to strive to corrupt the naïve and high-minded young 2nd lieutenants and police constables who come freshly-minted out of our military and police academies. They do so by sending them out on errands, to "collect" money from victims of extortion, as well as drug-deal pay-offs, jueteng balato, and other racketeering profits. Some money usually sticks to the fingers that handle it, and soon enough the youngsters find they can stuff a few coins, and then increasing amounts, into their own pockets. Those who can’t stomach these practices resign their commissions or opt out. I kid thee not, these stout-hearted men are the very few exceptions in the Order of Battle.

We’ve long been talking about the "culture of corruption" that afflicts our police set-up and armed forces. Rackets like "conversion" or ghost deliveries, illegal logging "permits", jueteng protection, etc. have on for years, even during the decade and a half our squeaky-clean former President Fidel V. Ramos was chief of the Philippine Constabulary. The pervasive cloud of sleaze is, by this token, not something new. Even the vicious "drug connection" is not new. It’s only now that Mary "Rosebud" Ong has plunged in with ugly specifics to blow the lid off it.

If you ask me, the only way to address the issue of PNP corruption is to do our best to ream out the blackguards and villainous in the Police establishment. But, at the same time, it’s imperative to build up a separate Police Force, a national "Gendarmerie," to borrow from the French, or National Guard like that in the United States. This is so we’ll have a fall-back position in case the policemen or, if you think about it, some of our soldiers and generals go "on strike."

The problem our President and Commander-in-Chief faces is that, even before she attempts to conduct any kind of "purge" or reform (which she has already ruled out), she is defeated in her own mind. This is due to the fact that she feels (suspects?) her ascent to the Presidency was owing to the support of the armed forces and the PNP, who deserted her predecessor ex-President Estrada, and transferred their allegiance to her. Until she disabuses her mind of this idea, and cracks the whip, nothing will come of the impetus to reform.

President GMA – already her cute and folksy acronym has trivialized her – must resolve to proceed without hesitation, whatever the flak and perceived threats, and say "damn the torpedos."

* * *

I know that poor outgoing US Chargé d’Affaires Mike Malinowski is caught in a whirlpool of controversy for having lost his cool and berated a Department of Foreign Affairs official named Elmer Cato. Let me say that when in less turbulent mood, Mike is a good guy and supportive, for that matter of us Filipinos. I’m not mentioning it to get Malinowsky off the hook, but we all lose our tempers at one time or another. If the hapless Mike ladled intemperate language on the head of Elmer, I confess, that in the past I’ve told an American Ambassador, and a German Ambassador, too, to "f— — — off!" Of course, never having been a diplomat, I’m not used to being polite.

Thanks to our previous colonial experience and the perception that for all our nationalistic declarations we’re still a "mental colony", Malinowski is, of course, doomed. (He has become the quintessential "Ugly American" and is being contrasted, in a less than sympathetic light, with our beloved Polish Pope). Some of my friends, in protest, are even giving up eating "Polish sausages." Anyway, he’s off to Nepal, the kingdom that inspired the book, Video Night in Kathmandu. (That’s also where almost the entire royal family – including Dad and Mom – was gunned down by the Crown Prince, who then turned his own gun on himself. If Mike Malinowski loses his temper there, who knows what might happen?)

All that having been said, the Americans are still our friends, and US military tradition is revered in our armed forces. This is why, to repeat my earlier injunction to President Arroyo, she must forge forward unafraid and "damn the torpedos" which might be launched against her. Only by this courageous action can she, and we all, triumph.

That renowned expression, enshrined in the annals of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, was uttered, when he went into battle, by America’s first Admiral, David G. Farragut (1801-70). Farragut was a midshipman at the age of eleven, and captured a British ship and became its "prize-master" at the age of 12. He earned his name in the American Civil war, by commanding the New Orleans expedition that penetrated the Confederacy and "opened" the Mississippi River in 1862 as far as Vicksburg, scene of the famous battle between the Blue and the Gray.

By the way, what happened to our own Philippine Navy? We may have good men, but we’ve got only leaky bathtubs by way of ships. No wonder the classic naval strategy adopted by our ships’ officers is to ram the enemy. Why, that tactic was fruitlessly used by Mark Anthony when he tried to ram his defending Roman galleys into the galleys of an attacking Roman fleet dispatched by his enemy and rival Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) to punish him and subjugate Egypt’s Cleopatra. Haven’t we advanced since then?

No wonder the Abu Sayyaf outruns our Navy in their motorized bancas. It’s time we overhauled our rusty fleet.

* * *

In his privilege speech assailing the Supreme Court resolution on PAGCOR’s possession of a franchise to operate and manage Jai Alai games, Cebu Rep. Raul V. del Mar admitted that he has "yet to see the official copy" of the High Court’s resolution – which means that when the Cebu solon delivered his philippic, he still had not read the resolution on which he based his speech.

Those who know how the popular numbers game called masiao in the Visayas and Mindanao is played will concede that this pernicious gambling game is based on jai alai "scores." This is what my friend Raul del Mar pointed out. I can’t disagree with that. However, his anger was woefully misplaced. The Supreme Court ruling didn’t support the re-opening of Jail Alai. The resolution, based on existing law, merely stated that the government-run Philippine Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) appears to have a franchise to operate and manage jai alai. As it happened, President Arroyo has already declared that jai alai is out.

The determination of whether a game of chance is gambling and ought to be prohibited is a matter of policy for Congress – of which Congressman del Mar is a member – to decide, not the Supreme court. The President, naturally, can either approve or veto the enacted legislation on this score, according to her own lights. The Supreme Court does not enunciate policy or pontificate on what is bad for public morals.

Rep. Del Mar’s indignation, therefore, is sadly misplaced. The ball is in his corner. If Congress is honestly against all forms of gambling, it should pass legislation to finally eradicate jueteng, uh. . . . cockfighting, and all other forms of gambling. Judging from the number of solons who frequent the cockpits and tupada, and those who used to enjoy watching jai alai, del Mar’s misplaced but pogi fit of anger should be directed at his own House of Representatives.