Preparing for 2004

Apart from being the incumbent, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has one edge over her emerging rival for the presidency, resigned Education Secretary Raul Roco. If the President has an attitude problem, Roco has a worse one. I don’t know if Roco can do a Fidel Ramos, who meta-morphosed overnight from one of the crankiest persons on Earth to a prince charming after he decided to seek the presidency.

Like President GMA, Roco does not suffer fools gladly. You feel it immediately, even in a perfunctory meeting with him. It must be one of the reasons there is such loathing for him in the department he has just left. A no-nonsense approach to work and public service can be interpreted as arrogance in this country. No big deal for a career bureaucrat just trying to do his job, but a major problem for a politician aiming for high office.

Gloria the taray queen has learned to laugh off her futile efforts at attitude change; she can at least claim that she was born and bred that way. Also, she does make an effort to develop mass appeal — by projecting herself like Nora Aunor, for example. Tacky, but hey, it worked.

I don’t know if Roco bothers putting on the charm on the campaign trail. What I remember is Miriam Defensor-Santiago complaining that he kept winking at her during their days together at the Senate.

If Roco is serious about a second run for the presidency, we’ll see soon enough; he’ll have to start organizing his machinery. In the meantime, all we can do is wait for the next survey by a major pollster, this time an uncommissioned one that takes in the Roco factor, to see if he is eating into the ratings of President GMA. If he is, expect him to face graft charges soon before the Ombudsman.

And expect black propaganda to abound about everything that can be dug up about Roco, from his finances to the size of his genitals, to journalists supposed to be on his payroll. If there’s no dirt to dig up, they can easily invent something. That’s politics in this country, and President GMA can’t pretend she and some sleazebags around her are above that kind of foul play.

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The sleazebags are said to be the same wise guys who pushed for the opening of slot machine arcades all over the country. Yesterday the President said with open regret that the government would be losing P2 billion as a result of the scrapping of the slot machine project. Whose heart is bleeding?

Gambling is the easiest and quickest way of raising revenues in this country, especially when revenue-generating agencies are underperforming and the deficit is ballooning out of control. Every new legal gambling venture is also a cash cow for whoever is in power. The talk is that the ones who pushed for this project are also the ones in charge of fund-raising for the President’s campaign.

Introducing a new gambling project in this country, however, can be tricky. Look at what happened to the jai alai and bingo projects. Filipinos generally acknowledge that gambling is a popular pastime. Young or old, rich or poor, there is a game for everyone. Filipinos love placing bets. So the government decided long ago that if it couldn’t stop the betting, it should at least make money from it.

Thus we have government agencies conducting horse races for the sweepstakes, operating casinos and the lottery. To give state-sponsored gambling a more wholesome image, these government gaming agencies give a hefty chunk of their earnings to development projects and charities, most of them Church-run.

This puts the Catholic Church in a bind each time the government moves to expand state-sponsored gambling operations. The Church is vocal about its opposition to illegal numbers games such as jueteng. So how can it continue to receive contributions from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.? Also, some of the biggest jueteng lords are major supporters of the Church.

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To be fair, ambiguity toward gambling is not the monopoly of the Church. We have politicians who finance their campaigns with jueteng money but publicly denounce illegal gambling. We have cops in charge of anti-gambling operations who are regular habitués of casinos.

It seems the unwritten policy is that state-sponsored gambling is okay, as long as activities are confined to certain areas and the operations are limited.

Now how limited should it be? Where do we draw the line? The lotto made it past critics, and it has been a huge success in terms of revenues. Why not the slot machines, as long as the arcades are kept away from schools? I can see someone reviving this proposal, but it has little chance of materializing before the 2004 elections.

Opponents of this project are worried not just about its effects on school children, but also about its possible beneficiaries in government. The suspicion is that somehow a hefty chunk of the megabucks expected from this project will find its way to the pockets of persons in power.

This is the environment we are in right now, with more than a year to go before the start of the presidential campaign. Everyone is watching everyone – for fund-raising activities, for genuine scandals, for anything that can be twisted for black propaganda. It is a sick atmosphere, and it will get sicker and uglier as 2004 approaches.

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WHERE’S THE HERO? Call me impatient, but I’m anxious to feel the presence of the new chairman of the Metro Manila Development Authority. Traffic is still bad and bus drivers are more abusive than ever, turning any spot they want into a terminal. Why do I get the feeling that MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando has a soft spot for bus operators?

I don’t see anything new being done about garbage or sidewalk vendors. Yesterday the Department of Public Works and Highways formally turned over its flood control functions to the MMDA. I think it will take a year before we can see results there. To be fair, Fernando is saddled with unusually high public expectations. But I’m not the only one getting impatient.