Gloria and the beast / A leap into the shadows

Lady Margaret Thatcher once told me, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "Women are the deadliest of the species". This was in answer to my query whether as prime minister for a decade she had ever quailed in parliament in the presence of the mightiest male politicians in Britain. Shakespeare’s pen dripped volumes on women, their beauty, their character, their charm, the eternal enigma of their smiles. The definition of woman that has stuck in my psyche, however, is what Charles Dudley Warner said: "Woman is perpetual revolution, and is that element in the world which continually destroys and recreates."

How true, how apt! President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had us all flatfooted and gape-mouthed Monday when she announced from the City of the Pines that she had renounced running for president in the 2004 national elections. Once, more than three years ago when GMA was still vice president, I undertook an emissary’s task as a member then of COPA (Council on Philippine Affairs) to alert her against the danger of a contemplated shift to the parliamentary form of government being hatched by President Joseph Estrada and his consiglieri. I said the peril again presented itself that she would be "marginalized" (she hates that word) if the parliamentary concept would succeed. It could nullify her chances to run for the presidency in 2004. Estrada would be putting one over her.

I thought she would appreciate our gesture. Two other members of Copa accompanies me (I shall not mention names). On her side, I will identify only one, now Rep. Willie Villarama, then her chief of staff. He can testify to the authenticity of this incident which I now recall purposely to cast some illumination on GMA’s blockbuster announcement turning her back on 2004.

At the mention of the word marginalized, GMA verbally lunged at me like an aroused Queen Cobra. "There you go again, saying I will be marginalized! I have never been marginalized! What really do you think of me? Avid for power, hungry for power? I am not hungry for power, I am not ambitioning the presidency, the heck do I care about being president. I am happy where I am. So do not go around saying again I will be marginalized!" Everybody fell silent. Willie Villarama said not a word. A close lady friend of GMA chose to curl up like a French poodle. Mike Arroyo was not there.

I was shell-shocked for a brief moment. It was the first time I had seen GMA in such a fit, a Medea hitting the roof, the aroused lioness of Petronius no less. And we were such good friends. And I had never forgotten the request of her late mother Doña Eva to treat Gloria like a daughter. Which I did. Even if at times, she behaved annoyingly like a revolving door.

This incident would have remained in my confidential archives. But now that Mrs. Arroyo has shocked everybody by announcing she would not run in 2004, I do understand and perhaps appreciate her better because of that incident. And I do hope she too, will understand. Maybe there are two Glorias. Or three. And now I also remember what that great French chef Curnonsky said about women: "The most really devastating women, the most unpredictably gorgeous are those who reach the age of 45 and beyond. Why? Because at that age, the devil enters their system, and they become irresistible."

I must also recall the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang, the male and female attributes of nature, existence and mankind. GMA as president squeezed into the garments and language of a male warrior, which hardly fitted her. "I will crush them"!, she told me on the eve of what some people now refer to as EDSA III. "I will crush them!" she repeated as we parted close to midnight. She was nowhere to be found when thousands of the hoi polloi laid siege on Malacañang at the break of dawn. "Isang bala ka lang!" she would also say. It didn’t fly. Inside, she remained demure. The yang in her became dominant. The yin retreated. And she eventually realized she couldn’t crush poverty, graft and corruption, crime and violence.

The president was unto the manor born, unto the world of political power, unto parents who mastered the grammar of politics and power. But now, in retrospect, I do not think she ever craved power for power’s sake. This was not her persona. If GMA did, it was because the political currents carried her along, her name, her credentials. And perhaps her husband Mike who relished the prospects of power at the top, who swirled in his mind the heraldry of being called First Gentleman. All that can intoxicate. And very presumably, at the beginning, they were intoxicated. All this grandeur. All this heady incense of power.

Until Gloria saw the beast.

Everyday that she awakened in Malacañang, GMA saw that beast. It was a nation deeply divided, in turmoil, a beast that devoured fire and spat fire. It was the poor lying at her feet in an endless sprawl throughout the archipelago, a heaving, bleeding nation of 80 million inhabitants. Soon under her presidency, they could starve by the millions. The beast was the irony that the Philippines "was the first republic in Asia . . . but has become one of the weakest, steadily left behind by its more progressive nations." So she said in her staggering Rizal Day speech.

Gone was her earlier hollow claim that she was the victim of "black propaganda", that the media feasted on her, that nothing she ever did was appreciated. And that was why the latest presidential surveys had her splashing in shallow waters behind Raul Roco, FPJ, Noli de Castro. The truth was eventually, she came eyeball to eyeball with the beast, a beast I have incessantly depicted in this space. Ah, she believes me after all.

It was perhaps illustrative that GMA underscored the deep divisions in the nation by emphasizing "the polarity between EDSA II and the May 1 siege (on Malacañang Palace) barely three months after." She encountered her moment of truth. She understood. It would need many years, many sacrifices, many bridges, to start taming this beast. It was a beast brought about by many decades of misrule, by leaders avid only for power and money and nothing else. GMA’s problem was that she was being blamed for a decades-old scourge that now threatened to come down like an avalanche and hit her smack-dab next year. Or the next.

She was not about to construct her Noah’s Ark and depart on a voyage that could lead to nowhere. What did Gabriel Garcia Marquez say? "Lost in the solitude of his (her) immense power, he (she) began to lose direction."

And so she decided to dismount a tiger she couldn’t really ride.

Maybe there are other reasons we do not know. Maybe GMA discovered a military cabal of generals and colonels plotting to seize power next year. Whatever it is, her decision had the providential effect of squelching moves in the shadows by ambitious men in uniform to take Malacañang over. They will no longer have the excuse that GMA is sinking, and they have to replace her. And – Dios te salve – save the nation.

And yet, many remain skeptical. They say the whole thing was just a gimmick. Like her father, contends the snarling, completely biased Crispin Remulla, GMA will go back on her word, doublecross everybody, and run in 2004. Correction. Diosdado Macapagal never officially or formally announced he would not run for reelection in 1965. He possibly vouchsafed this to Ferdinand Marcos who didn’t believe him and crossed over to the Nacionalista Party.

But the gimmick concept can only work if GMA in the next 18 months or so weaves a series of spectacular and astounding miracles as president. This is just not possible. And she knows it. When the war breaks out in Iraq late January or mid-February, the international economy will squish and sputter, slash a big wound on the Philippines economic underbelly, and the nation shudders and becomes more ungovernable. Although the road to the 2004 elections remains wide open.

So let’s give the lady the benefit of a doubt.

We had in a past column, of course, advised her to abandon her quest for the presidency in 2004. And stick to the course, that of governing the country wisely, bravely and well. And then history would have a niche for her. Who was it in America (was it Alexander Hamilton?) who said many decades ago: "If nominated, I shall not accept. If elected, I shall not serve."

I hope GMA has the same firm and unshakeable resolve. But we must warn her she cannot do really much in a year’s time. Sticking a knife into the nation’s poverty is like drilling an oil well with a balisong. Getting the economy to move out of the deep marshes will take a decade at best, perhaps a generation. Getting an 80 million population to stand still, so more jobs will be available, is a pipe-dream. But you can still make your mark, Ma’am, and convince the Doubting Thomases you can crack that whip wickedly and with all sincerity.

So hang on, Mrs. President, the sabre-toothed sharks swimming around you will soon withdraw.