2004 campaign comes too early

For Malacañang, the quick succession of allegations of corruption by the First Couple can only be a destabilization effort of ex-President Joseph Estrada. For Estrada’s partymates, the allegations can only be true.

If it’s destabilization, then it’s working. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s daily presidential schedule has been reduced to refuting the charges, and pleading with reporters to not go for the sensational. Investors are turning more and more jittery about the political clime instead of maneuvering out of business slowdown. Everyone is getting distracted from urgent tasks of licking poverty and crime.

If the allegations are true, Estrada’s men have yet to substantiate them in Senate hearings instead of mere press assertions. This, to rid themselves of suspicion that they’re on a too-early 2004 presidential campaign anchored on usual muckraking.

The first case they brought to fore – First Gentleman Mike Arroyo’s alleged P40-million bribe to make his wife recall two franchise vetoes – turned out a dud. It was based on mere cellphone text messages that the accusers forwarded to radio commentators as evidence. In the ensuing Senate inquiry, Bing Rodrigo, the President’s school chum and social secretary with whom Mike had a spat, admitted under oath that she’d been taken in by the texting craze. Another initial accuser, the franchise holder Pacifico Marcelo, then belied any bribe. Can it be because two of his female employees are set to testify to being present when he composed the messages in July?

The second case also flopped. Disgruntled (because sacked) sweepstakes consultant Robert Rivero at first claimed that Mike, again, had used charity funds for the senatorial campaigns of winners Joker Arroyo and Juan Flavier, and losers Roberto Pagdanganan and Ernesto Herrera. But his evidence was a mere list of payoffs and sweepstakes ads in radio and television stations that he himself delivered in late June and July - well after the campaign and with no link to Mike. Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel had to back off when it was revealed that Rivero’s wife was the press agent of Opposition pointman Panfilo Lacson. Edgardo Angara turned into the accused when two of Rivero’s cohorts later recanted that the senator induced them with a yet-unpaid million pesos to hack at Mike and Joker and Col. Victor Corpus.

The third case is fast disintegrating. Marcelo, after clearing Mike, has come out with a bigger claim that the President no less tried to grab control of his telecoms franchises in exchange for lifting her veto. His appearance at the Senate last Friday, his first after three subpoena dodges in 45 days, made him look like a failed blackmailer. He couldn’t remember the date of his August one-on-one with Mrs. Arroyo; Lacson had to coach him that it was the 16th, not the 18th. He couldn’t clarify how the President would recall under a new Congress a veto she had issued during a previous one, if she had the power to recall it at all; Senator Loi Ejercito had to try, in vain, to get Marcelo’s lawyer to answer the question. Confronted with his use of a US passport, he couldn’t prove his reacquisition of Filipino citizenship; Angara tried to belittle the citizenship issue, as if it didn’t matter when the Constitution specifically bars foreigners from owning and operating utilities. He couldn’t justify his meager P550,000-capital for a monopoly that would earn P55 billion a year; Angara had to butt in with a protest that Joker, as inquiry chairman, was prejudging the credibility of Marcelo. He was forced to admit not being present before the notary public who attested to his affidavit, and to lying in immigration statements when arriving in Manila; Senator Robert Jaworski had to threaten to walk out of the hearing because of "embarrassing" methods of questioning Marcelo.

In the end the Opposition had to fall back on usual press statements. Pimentel chattered that Marcelo couldn’t have mistaken the President’s use of the pronoun "we" to mean that the government, not her, should hold the franchise. He claimed that the law bars the government from going into the telecoms business. Of course it does, if the business were telecoms per se, but not if it were an interconnection clearing house of all telecoms firms. That is part of government’s regulatory function, assuming that the firms cannot interconnect on their own for the benefit of subscribers. Senator Tessie Oreta jigged about what lengths Malacañang took to keep Marcelo’s meeting private. Yet Palace appointments secretary Mai Jimenez, whose turn on the witness stand has yet to be set, has been aching to testify that it was Marcelo himself who had requested that he be kept out of sight of the press that fateful meeting.

Malacañang itself needs to substantiate the line that Estrada is behind the series of destabilizing accusations. Its theory is that the jailed Opposition financier is banking on a weakened administration to strengthen his bid to get out of jail in the meantime and certain life term if convicted of plunder. His lawyers are crying that he needs a knee surgery in California, although reports have it that Estrada doesn’t even have a US visa. They had laid their bets on dismissal of the plunder case in a petition to have the law declared unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court upheld it 10-to-4. Going by Malacañang’s line, Estrada’s next moves would have to be extralegal.

Suspicion that everything’s just a too-early positioning for the 2004 presidential run is more plausible. The fight is on for survey ratings and public attention. Angara, the Oposition’s best bet three years from now, would be saddled with Estrada’s legacy if the latter’s trial keeps reiterating tales of presidential mistresses and mansions and million-peso mahjong tips. Worse for Angara’s reputation would be Lacson’s possible jailing for multiple murder - if the Supreme Court upholds a government case linking him to the 1995 Kuratong Baleleng massacre. Amgara can find equal footing only if Mrs. Arroyo is cut down.

But the Opposition is not solid in its early presidential choice. There’s Senator Sergio Osmeña to contend with. He too has grabbed the limelight with a story about Malacañang borrowing his plane to deliver ransom to the Abu Sayyaf last June. Will that story sell, or flop too?

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