Estrada as good as convicted / New thunder out of Mindanao

Those who thought the Supreme Court couldn’t punch itself out of a paper bag were pleasantly surprised when it ruled the plunder law constitutional by a vote of 10-4-1. Heavy fog had gathered everywhere because of the anticipation the High Court, with broomsticks ridden heigh-ho by at least six Estrada-appointed justices, would sweep the plunder law into oblivion. Now it’s final. Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the fallen and disgraced president, will spend many more years in jail at the rate the trial is proceeding. Delay, delay, drag, drag is the defense strategy. Drib, drab, rope-a-dope is the prosecution’s stance. Anyway, before we proceed, the Supreme Court gets the public’s kudos.

As a Batangueño would say, they had brains in their balls, and balls in their brains. This time, anyway.

Now, where does Erap Estrada go from here? You can see from his face and his slow, measured, sometimes shuffling walk that the life is going out of him. All his life, Erap had spent in action, either as a brawling student, a movie actor, a politician, action in and out of power, by day and by night, always in pursuit of la dolce vita, the raw and raucuous company of fellow drinkers, tipplers, gamblers, roisterers all, yodelers all, who collected women the way they collected credit cards and luxury cars. And mansions. The way the ancient rich and royal Chinese of the Middle Kingdom built palazettas for their concubines.

Earlier optimistic, even jubilant the Supreme Court would stick a knife into the plunder law and thus virtually acquit him and set him free, Estrada spun around like a keelhauled pugilist falling to the canvas when the ruling came. Now the idea he would spend at least theoretically many more years in jail is driving Estrada crazy. I have reliable information he has instructed his cabal to fully exploit the last remedy available — get him out of the country. All systems go! was reportedly the battlecry. Meaning get the Sandiganbayan and Malacañang by whatever means to allow him to leave the Philippines for a surgical operation on his knees. Spend billions, if necessary.

Don’t believe a word of his plaintive pledge he would come back after the operations to face trial anew. He won’t. Flee he will and he will never come back.

Since there is an extradition treaty between the Philippines and the US, Estrada could very well proceed to another country, Britain maybe, France maybe, Morocco maybe where Imee Marcos and husband Tommy Manotoc hibernated for years joining the European jet set, prodigally spending the loot the Marcos family plundered during the 20 years they were in power. Billions, so we are informed, Estrada has amassed, billions that surprisingly were not able to swing the so-called pro-Estrada justices in the Supreme Court in his favor. And if those billions cannot buy him passage abroad? Then billions to buy another May Day siege of Malacañang, billions to make sure the military takes over the Palace, billions so his military and police minions escort him to a chartered private plane in the night waiting to fly him to Hong Kong and Australia and wherever he wants to go.

After all he is no Osama bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, but only Josephus bin Loaded, out to possibly seek the nocturnal company of Bill Clinton whose tastes for fleshy broads are akin to his own. Joke only.

The Supreme Court decision on the plunder issue at the very least buys precious time. The trial, however ponderously slow, goes on. Everybody feels the weight of this trial, its historical significance, the first time a president is arrested, fingerprinted, mug-photo-graphed, jailed, arraigned, unable to post bail, a man of so much power and so much celebrity reduced to a man of so little power, impotent, a wild horse corraled and roped and chafing mightily at the bit. Ah, the Erap Estrada of May 1998 tumbling to our midst like Napoleon from the wars, mighty and glorious, moored in the myth that he was for the mahirap. He was everything the Church didn’t want him to be, the educated and the middle class didn’t want him to be. A man of the flesh, rather than a man of the intellect.

But he was the big-bellied Thief of Bagdad — with magic.

And so the trial goes on and the future of the nation hinges on the outcome of this trial. If the evidence is any indication — the prosecution tells me it is air-tight — then Estrada will be convicted. And possibly executed. If the trial drags on and on, with the defense lawyers continuing to play hookey, hooey and hokum, then it will prove justice is only for the mighty and not the poor. But whatever the curves on the road, the sharp turns — if Estrada cannot flee — the man is doomed. The skin will continue to flake away, the face atrophy into a moat or a lonely craggy moor, the body stagnate, the mind never used to isolation or intellectual thought break out into dead shells on the beach. His mistresses are not there to console him.

As it is, Joseph Ejercito Estrada is already convicted.

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A deeply disturbing development is the Nur Misuari-led attack on Army headquarters in Jolo that left 52 people dead and at least 83 wounded. A snarling, murderous Misuari back to the wars of old was something we never expected. For years he had been coopted by the Philippine government, cozened, pampered and spoiled even, eased with fanfare into the chair of the Southern Philippine Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD) and ran, virtually unopposed, as governor of ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao).

The former head of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), it seems, faltered and possibly failed in his job as ARMM governor and the SPCPD. The latter was the herald of a Mindanao finally becoming the Land of Promise. Misuari’s aide Abdurahman Jamasali said the MNLF rebels mounted the attacks to prevent the holding of the ARMM polls scheduled November 26.

The reaction of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now on prolonged visit in America, was expressed by her spokesperson Rigoberto Tiglao: "This could be a move to embarrass the president while she is in the United States, to project an image that she is not in control or the AFP is not in control." This statement by Bobby Tiglao is silly and sassy. It has no comprehension of the deep currents of the Muslim rebellion in Mindanao within the context of an Islam brandishing its sword almost all over the world.

I could see this early on when the announcement was made that the MNLF and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) had reconciled or were on the brink of reconciling. This was part of the Islamic extremism that had resurged almost worldwide, dramatized by the destructions of Twin Towers and the Pentagon September 11, then America and an anti-terrorist coalition staging a counter-attack that has bombed Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, the Taliban fleeing Azar I Sharif and Kabul. The US says the noose is tightening around Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. The latter is losing the war but the name Osama bin Laden is on the lips of Muslim extremists like a hero.

Notice that neither the MILF nor the MNLF has denounced Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaeda. Robert D. Kaplan (The Coming Anarchy) has this to say: "Islamic extremism is the psychological defense mechanism of many urbanized peasants threatened with the loss of traditions in pseudo-modern cities where their values are under attack, where basic services like water and electricity are un-available, and where they are assaulted by a physically unhealthy environment... Islam’s very militancy makes it attractive to the downtrodden. It is the one religion that is prepared to fight. A political era driven by emotional stress increases cultural sensitivity, unregulated urbanization, and refugee migrations created for the spread and intensification of Islam, already the world’s fastest growing religion."

President Macapagal-Arroyo goes nation-hopping at a time her presence in the Philippines is direly needed.

As I have stated again and again, the roots of our national crisis, exemplified by rising crime (the Philippine National Police and DILG secretary Joey Lina are currently giving us the hocus-pokus-dayokus that the incidence of crime has fallen) are deeply spiked in widespread poverty. The more poor there are, the more crime, the more social and political strife, ditto more crime. And drugs. Kabeez, Mr. Lina and General Leandro Mendoza? So stop kidding us with your figures and statistics. Nobody believes them.

The larger picture in Mindanao worries me no end. As wrenching poverty stalks Mindanao more menacingly, and the Muslim rebels can never hope to achieve the status of middle class, Kaplan explains the language of violence, vide: "Where there has always been mass poverty, people find liberation in violence."

Mrs. President, you must rush back home before the whole thing explodes in your face.