You’d think they were bracing for a revolution

The President was cool and relaxed in her attractive red dinner gown last Monday night when she told this writer that she was not "worried at all" about threats that pro-Erap and anti-GMA forces might mount a similar assault on Malacañang as the tumult that turned last year’s "May Day" into what she later called "a state of rebellion".

I was happy, of course, to see our petite Ina ng Bayan so cool, calm and collected – with even a humorous twinkle in her eye. First Gentleman Mike Arroyo was on hand, quietly chatting with us as well, in a small get-together that followed the formal "official dinner" in Malacañang in honor of Prime Minister Boun-Nhang Vorachith of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Also in our group was Executive Secretary Bert Romulo, as always courtly and gentlemanly in manner and speech.

Everybody in the Palace that evening was, indeed, in a festive and very laid-back mood.

Yet somebody must be worried, since the mobilization of arms and men outside the Palace today appears as if the government was bracing for the 14th Thermidor and an assault on the Bastille, or some sort of "revolution". Ringing the place are Task Force Malacañang, Task Force Kalayaan and Task Force Libra. In addition, four Army battalions are on "standby". They’ve moved forklifts, container vans, and anti-riot equipment into place.

C’mon. This is overkill.

Anyway, the President will be out of Malacañang for most of the day. Early in the morning, she’s flying off to Davao City to address labor rally, then rocketing over to Cebu City to speak at another labor gathering, and finally, returning to Manila and speeding, without a pause, to the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, to speak at a 1:30 p.m. gathering of more "moderate" labor unionists, et cetera. It seems she’ll be moving – hopefully – too fast to be "ambushed".

The late columnist and pundit Teodoro "Doroy" Valencia warned me many years ago: "Never predict anything until you know it already happened." Anybody who doesn’t take such a precaution, he pointed out, usually winds up with egg all over his face. (Doroy, God rest his soul, violated his own maxim on one occasion and had to suffer – the result he had predicted.) That sage piece of advice, which I once violated, too, to my sorrow, has saved me from embarrassment over the years.

So, I won’t attempt to predict that there won’t be "too much trouble" today. All I can say is that if the pro-Estrada demonstrators think they can pull a "Hugo Chavez" (referring to the "instant" return of the deposed Venezuelan president to the Palace in Caracas), they should know they can’t replicate this feat. Despite all the romantic ululating that it was the Venezuelan masa, pouring into the streets to cry out their support for Chavez, it seems that the Leftwing strongman was returned to power, after a hiatus of only 48 hours, when the same military officers who had dethroned him made a U-turn, and put him back in command.

Will the military do the same thing here in the Philippines, after a lapse of more than a year and two months? It was said in England that "a week is a long time in politics." What more a year.

All the foolish talk, month after month, that there was going to be a "coup" anytime, or a violent upheaval or a civilian-military junta taking over, or, more recently, that there’s a threat from "Freedom Force", has had a salutary effect. That recurring wild talk has numbed the public into reacting with total indifference towards scare-mongering and warnings of any impending "coup".

Incidentally, the originator of "The Force is with you" is coming out with a new "Star Wars" movie, Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Multimedia mogul George Lucas’s new epic is being celebrated by TIME magazine in its latest issue (May 6) with a cover portrait of the legendary 900-year-old Jedi, ears proudly extended (à la FVR) over the catchy cover caption: "Yoda Strikes Back!"

Who’s worrying then about trouble today? Sure, there may be a few broken heads and casualties. Perhaps armed clashes and even some fatalities. Nobody knows. But an overthrow of the government. No, sir. Not unless Yoda and the Jedi join the troublemakers.

* * *

The President said she thoroughly enjoyed scuba diving at Tubbataha Reef in Palawan – and that photograph in yesterday’s STAR portraying her 82 feet below the surface at Amos Rock confirms her expertise. (She told me that she had practiced a lot in secret before she made that dive because she knew that the eyes – and lens – of the entire media would be focused on her and her technique.)

Yet, looking at that photo again, horrors, one notices that La Presidenta Nautica is performing a "no no." Her hands are grasping the coral. This, dive aficionados complain, should never be done! One irate German friend rang me up, indignantly, to insist that GMA ought to "fire her Divemaster for not preventing her from doing this!" I retorted that she would have fired her Divemaster if he had scolded her for doing it.

I’m sorry for the "environmentalists" who’re so outraged at the thought that our cheerfully diving President was giving the tribe of scuba divers a bad example, thus contributing to the damage and destruction of our coral beds. On the other hand, with Tubbataha Reef being destroyed month after month by dynamite fishermen, why bicker over such trivial things? Whoever briefed the President on how the Coast Guard and Navy are protecting Tubbataha Reef (which is far larger, prettier, and contains more varieties of fish and marine fauna than Australia’s world-famous Great Barrier Reef) was selling her a lot of baloney

The Chief Exectuvie insisted that the Reef was being faithfully guarded against dynamite fishermen, poachers, and other intruders. She had, she recounted, even been shown a structure (like the Chinese had built in the Spratlys) from which the government’s environmentalists and guardians kept watch.

Sorry, Ma’am, but those goof-offs weren’t telling you the truth. For seven months of the year, when the scuba divers aren’t around, not only local dynamite fishermen, or cyanide fishermen, are at work in the area. Chinese vessels dart in to join the feeding frenzy.

How can we effectively police a reef system that extends for kilometers? Our protective agencies don’t even try. (Sure, they’ve caught 116 or more Chinese and Taiwanese, it’s true enough.) But many of the "explosions" occur very close to shore. Our government custodians must be both deaf and blind, or, more likely, in cahoots with the poachers and destroyers.

What sort of a "report card" can we give, then, to Director-General Koichiro Matsuura of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) when he arrives here from Paris today? Our glorious Tubbataha Reef had been named by UNESCO a global treasure trove nine years ago and earmarked for protection.

Fortunately, Mr. Matsuura is coming here not to investigate eco-terrorism but to proclaim World Press Freedom Day, and discuss how global terrorism affects the media. With the busy schedule laid out for him, he won’t have time to go scuba-diving.