The Roco page-turner: Expect the unexpected

We are back again to Margaret Thatcher, the original Iron Lady, whose outstanding political maxim was to "expect the unexpected". From an obscure player in British politics, and earlier a grocer’s fetching daughter in smart high heels and short tawny curls, Maggie parlayed her instincts and her searing moral vision to an unprecedented 11-1/2 years as prime minister. The "unexpected" was a whipsaw she always turned to advantage. But we shall not tarry longer on this outstanding woman except to say the "unexpected" is now happening in the Philippines.

We have not stopped blinking since Education Secretary Raul Roco resigned just three days ago, a resignation so sudden, so swift, yes so unexpected that our political world continues to spin. More days will pass, weeks maybe, before we can fully measure the significance of Roco’s resignation. Two phrases in the letter of resignation cast a lurid, accusing light on the state of Malacañang politics today. The first: "It would have been so simple for Your Excellency or the Executive Secretary to ask me to explain as a member of your official family. Such courtesy was not extended." The second: "There is no place in democracy for humiliating people as a policy instrument. We must empower people – then the nation shall be strong." How apt, how succinct, how circumspect, how deadly.

This is a searing indictment of the presidential character of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It was a repeat of what she did to Vice President Teofisto Guingona. She chopped him to kindling wood even before he resigned, sought to reduce him to a whimpering idiot except that Mr. Guingona fought back and maintained his dignity. Now as to Raul Roco’s resignation letter. It was extremely dignified, but nonetheless a sharp accusing knife dipped in amber. The knife was withdrawn immediately after it had been deeply thrust, and it dripped blood. It was a trial lawyer’s masterful lunge.

But I’d like to clarify one thing before we go afield. The whole shebang was about delicadeza, a word we seem to have forgotten. When President GMA endorsed what Roco dismissed as a brace of "baseless charges" against him to Anti-Graft Commissioner Dario Rama, and Rama in turn blared this to media and the whole wide world, delicadeza swung like an albatross from the gallows. Roco was being fed to the wolves by the president. The intention was clear: Get Roco.

I will have none of Press Secretary Alfredo Bunye’s silly, asinin, and preposterous assertion that all this was purely "ministerial" since two other cabinet secretaries were similarly notified by Dario Rama. Let me say:

Primo, the notification to Justice Secretary Hernando Perez and Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit were not endorsed by GMA. This makes all the difference in the world, Mr. Bunye, sir. Secundo, the very fact that Mr. Roco was kept in the dark indicates the existence of a Palace conspiracy to slit the education secretary’s throat. Tertio, the motive was scrawled on the Palace wall in letters big and bold: Roco topped the Ibon presidential survey, Joseph Estrada placed second, and GMA third. This is lese majeste. Ergo, Raul Roco must be keelhauled at all costs.

But let me add a fourth. Quarto, this columnist too was a cabinet member as press secretary and spokesman. In our time, the president resorted to no such thing as an Anti-Graft Commissioner hounding members of the Cabinet. When the President wanted somebody out, she did so, eyeball to eyeball. As when she told then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile to get lost because of his suspected role in several RAM coup attempts. In an instant, a chastened JPE handed his resignation. On another occasion, President Aquino almost in tears purged her cabinet of "unwanted elements" under pressure of a right-wing military that brooked no dissent. Others like Tourism Secretary Antonio Gonzales were given the boot or told to resign because of ethical considerations. Speedy Gonzales was a little bit too fast with the broads.

In my case, I resigned after almost three years. Palace intrigues finally clawed at what remained of my loyalty to the President. I resigned irrevocably. I felt at the time and still do now the President was playing favorites at my expense. Delicadeza demanded that I quit. And to make sure nothing and nobody could stop me, I sent copies of my resignation ahead to the Malacañang Press Corps.

Raul Roco had all the reasons to resign. At this time of writing, he was scheduled to meet with GMA at Malacañang. I have absolutely no fears, no foreboding. The man is principled. He will stand his ground. He has burned his bridges. Nothing the President will say, offer or proffer, can change his mind. I had long looked for somebody who could partly fill the role of Archimedes. At one time, Archimedes shouted to the four winds something like this: "Give me a piece of ground to stand on and from there, I shall shake the world." Months ago, I talked with Sen. Joker Arroyo. I had expected him, I said, to stand like Archimedes in the Senate, but he had not done so. The voice that rattled the rafters during the Senate impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada, before whose eloquence Estelito Mendoza fell like withered clay, had become strangely mute in the post-impeachment Senate.

And so the political landscape was bereft of any political prodigy. Loren Legarda was still there of course. But she had shed off the armor of a warrior, no longer sauntered in the direction of Camelot, was happy as a lark flitting and chirping in the Senate hall.

Expect the unexpected. Who would have expected that Ibon would conduct a presidential survey? Who would have expected that Raul Roco would top this survey with a wide margin? Who would have expected that Joseph E. Estrada would land second? Who would have expected that President GMA would land a dismal and disappointing third? Who would have expected that an Ibon survey – not really a crackajack blue-chip survey – would hit the headlines? Who would have expected the political landscape overnight would suddenly shift, releasing wind torrents that would probably impact on 2004? Who would have expected that Raul Roco, again overnight, would drop from the sky atop a horse clad like Leonidas looking for an impregnable Thermopylae? Who would have expected that the emerging uproar now points to Mr. Roco as the man to beat? Who would have expected that in so short a time his political arrow was up in the air with a missile velocity unmatched by any other presidential aspirant?

Expect the unexpected.

Who would have expected that this early the Palace would commit a big blunder and in so doing open the presidential gunwales to Raul Roco? When you look closely, what does this whole thing mean or portend? It means just one thing. Everything had become so bleak, so desolate, so bare and barren that the future looked like one big ugly blob, probably a millennial monster waiting to devour all of us. It would have been all right if President GMA was perceived as the Lady by the Lake, a Queen Guinevere glinting in the sun and summoning her knights to heroism and deeds galore. But even if her approval ratings have improved, GMA continues to fumble. She touches the surface with the sheen of water spiders careening hither and yon but does not reach deep under to feel the deep, coursing currents. Real leadership still escapes her. Her concept of catching the nation’s criminals is focused on low-brow malefactors, flushed from the poor and the oppressed, instead of the big billionaire ones, culled from the rich and the mighty.

Now what can they throw at Raul Roco?

I don’t buy that stuff coming from Department of Education employees dancing in delirium in the wake of Roco’s resignation. So Mr. Roco was a five-alarm tyrant who wasn’t nice to them. Maybe they deserved it. For so long had they penned in the department in what the French call quadrillage to protect their various rackets. The department was one of the most corrupt in the government, probably the most corrupt. Wherever he could, the secretary cracked down and he cracked down hard.

Once in this column I rapped Raul for allegedly refusing to sign a resolution seeking Ninoy Aquino’s release from prison during the martial law years. Cory Aquino corrected me, said Roco’s only possible misstep was that like virtually all the others fearing the dictator’s wrath, he started distancing himself. Well, I will say this. Tessie Aquino Oreta and Butz Aquino, blood sister and blood brother they, betrayed Ninoy’s legacy by hitching their wagons to Erap Estrada and daily lighting candles at his feet. Until today, Raul Roco remains respected of this legacy. While admitting the man has his faults – a rash of many personal pimples and rashes, his critics say – Mr. Roco graces a room today more than anybody can.

There is one last thing we must say. The road to the year 200r was a dismal road to be tracked by a lot of presidential misfits, a road we would all traverse with the greatest care lest it explode in our faces. I am not saying Raul Roco’s emergence will make this road less hazardous and menacing. I am simply saying there could be a lot of fireflies hovering in the darkness, and it may be worth our while to travel this road after all. Unless a social volcano explodes.

Yes, it is true. Expect the unexpected.