In the arena

It’s not enough for President Macapagal-Arroyo to declare war on corruption, or smuggling, or kidnapping. Words are cheap. Those statements have been made before – yet, nothing happened. Even her predecessor, ex-President Joseph Estrada, brandished as his campaign battle-cry that he would destroy corruption and kick out the "hoodlums in robes". The hoodlums are still there, in robes, while Erap is in jail.

Here are a few things, though, with which the Chief Executive can begin to show genuine determination in addressing the chronic problem of corruption – things which are doable from her standpoint:

(1) Appoint an honest, tough, independent-minded Ombudsman to succeed the FVR-appointed Ombudsman Aniano Desierto who is being retired by law on August 4. (Having been unsuccessful in putting a dent in government corruption, Desierto is now actively aspiring to be "appointed" by GMA to the Supreme Court. Should he be thus rewarded?)

Next: (2) Terminate presidential appointees – who, after all, serve at the pleasure of the appointing power, Her Excellency GMA – meaning those who are, as people say, "notoriously undesirable" or against whom exist credible reports of malfeasance (without the need of a tedious formal investigation). It’s the President’s personal call, and she must act without hesitation or remorse, which takes courage and chutzpah. In this over-legalistic society, "prove it" have been for too long the two words protecting the ungodly from punishment and retribution.

And (3) Reject the importunings of influential politicians in her own camp to designate their unfit protégés, who, it’s apparent from the start, are potential crooks out to misuse the office or judicial position to which they are appointed.

How can the President tell who’s right and who’s wrong? It’s her prerogative to decide. If there’s any shadow of a doubt she must say either "no" or "get out", as the case may be. GMA need not wait for some thunderbolt of illumination from God, like the one which struck St. Paul (formerly Saul) on the Road to Damascus. The only thing she needs is gut instinct. It doesn’t even require six units in Economics or Finance. After all, she’s the President.

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One of the best quotations I’ve read on the subject was garnered from former US Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, when he explained in the preface of his interesting autobiography (Regency Publishing, Inc., Washington DC 2001) why he called his memoirs IN THE ARENA.

In the book, co-authored by Gretchen Roberts, Weinberger pointed out that the American President Theodore Roosevelt (1904-1909) "is a great hero of mine, and his words best summed up my wish to be in the arena, and not in the stands with the timid souls."

Then he quoted Teddy R., well-known as the "Rough Rider" President who led the charge up San Juan Hill (not our San Juan, sorry):

"Service is rendered . . . by the man who . . . is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who erred and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

That’s a piece of advice, I feel, our President must emulate in her own struggle for our people’s welfare and, in truth, survival. She must never fear error or failure, as long as she expends every effort, every fibre of her being, every aspiration of her soul for the nation’s good.

This, too, is what she must require of everyone she marshals into her enterprise. It was modest and in this carping society wise of her to have remarked, at the beginning that she wanted to just be a good President. Any declared ambition in excess of that would immediately have been belittled, ridiculed and scoffed at by the innumerable critics and nitpickers we have in abundance (including cantankerous columnists like me) in our cynical milieu.

I hope that, in her heart, she is truly motivated by "the great enthusiasms" and the "great devotions" of which Teddy Roosevelt spoke, and if ever she should fall it will, at least, be from "daring greatly".

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Casper Weinberger, by the way, belonged to what Tom Brockaw later glorified in his own book as The Greatest Generation.

He fought in the Pacific in World War II under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. He entered politics in California and was one of then Governor Ronald Reagan’s closest aides. He was tapped by another Californian, Richard M. Nixon, to cut the federal budget and promote Nixon’s policy of social reform. After Nixon resigned in 1974, Weinberger served President Gerry Ford for ten months, then resigned and thought he had said "goodbye" to Washington, DC for good. But then, his original boss and chum, Ronald Reagan, ran for President — and he threw himself back "into the arena" and into the campaign trail. When Reagan won in 1980, he was challenged by Reagan to help him rebuild the US armed forces.

Weinberger’s appointment as Secretary of Defense was announced on December 1, 1980. He was the only Cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate on the first day of the Reagan administration by a vote of 97 to 2. (The two Senators who had dissented apologized to him months later, and became his good friends. They said they had "misjudged" him. One of them was Senator Jesse Helms.

I think instead of relying on foreign help in our own defense including that of the Americans, our President and our Congress should take to heart the convictions of Weinberger (and his President Ronald Reagan with whom he was always in synch). In his memoirs, Weinberger recounts (on page 274) that "in view of my reputation from California and my OMB days as a zealous budget cutter, many may have thought it odd that the president-elect would ask me to conduct and lead the great military build-up that we both knew was necessary. I had always felt that we needed to maintain a strong defense at all times. I had recognized this back in 1972, when I was director of the budget, and I made no secret of my opinion."

In a speech delivered eight years earlier in October 17, 1972 before the American Enterprise Institute, Weinberger spelled it out: "If our defense budget is inadequate, nothing else will be of much moment, and we will only know it when it is too late."

If we don’t invest in our own defense, then nobody in this whole wide world will take us seriously – certainly not the rebels, "termites", or mischief-makers in our midst, and our external enemies (yes, Virginia... I mean, Gloria . . . they do exist) will take us seriously. We won’t even take ourselves seriously.

And let’s not rely on the Americans to do this for us. They’ve got their own "wars" to fight, and their own agenda. Don’t take it from me. Take it from their Founding Father. The man who led the Continental Army in 1776 and won independence for the United States of America, becoming its first President, described as "great in war, great in peace, and great in the hearts of his countrymen" – who else but George Washington – asserted in his Farewell Address: "Take care the nation is not harmed by extremes of party spirit. Have peaceful commerce with all nations but expect favors from none."