GMA bouncey after fleeing Italian blackout, ready for- - - ?

PARIS – Did you expect me to write, "ready for 2004"? That’s what my gut instinct plus her body language tell me, but we can only deal in facts, not speculation.

Anyway, President GMA bounced off her chartered Presidential Airbus 340 as ebullient and energetic as if she had just come from a ten-hour rest and a beauty parlor, with a rather more wilted First Gentleman, Mike Arroyo, in tow. GMA was dressed in gray, M.A. in a dark blue suit and a drowsy expression. But they were together. Didn’t talk much to each other, but defiantly enough they were a family. (And the kids were there, too – including the cute little baby girl.)

However, this is not a "Lifestyle" column. All I can say is that Madam la Presidenta was full of beans, brimming over with enthusiasm and chutzpah when we greeted her at the Orly Airport at 3:45 p.m. Sunday.

She had cancelled all her appointments in Rome that day because, fantastically, the entire city – indeed almost all of Italy – had been plunged into darkness. Nothing was running, certainly not the trains nor the Metropolitana (the subway train network), which scores of thousands of our OFWs, overseas workers, would have taken to the hotel in which they had been scheduled to meet the Chief Executive.

"The hotel where the conference had been scheduled had no electricity, and its generator wasn’t working," GMA explained. In the hostelry in which she had been billeted, "The Ambassador" (a family favorite since her late father, President Diosdado Macapagal’s days), the generator had barely enough "power" to air-condition her bedroom, while the rest of the suite had remained dark. "So, with the situation hopeless, we decided to depart earlier than intended."

Mindanao Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel, who had joined the group from New York for the Roman visit, said he had awakened to total blackness and had to grope his way to the bathroom.

It turned out that the blackout, which descended on the Eternal City about 3:30 a.m. was nationwide, almost a repeat of the North American disaster which had hit both the Northeastern and midwestern US and Canada, throwing New York City and Toronto, and cities in between into a 30-hour agony. It seems that Italy "buys" most of its electric power from neighboring France (which is powered perhaps 80 percent by nuclear plants, and thereby can export excess megawattage on a bargain basis). Somewhere along the line something must have tripped. (This time they couldn’t blame it on the jellyfish of Sual, Pangasinan.)

In any event, the horrible brownout surely put a crimp in la dolce vita. Up to way past midnight, Rome had been in a festival mood, with all the shops, boutiques, bistros, restaurants, open and blazing with light. Crowds thronged the alleyways, from the Via dei Condotti to Trastevere, in a sort of Midnight Madness, another member of the GMA party, businessman Endika Aboitiz, told me.

GMA recounted that the Roman weather had been excellent – "not warm and not cold, either". Until the disaster, of course.

* * *

Here in Paris, where my wife and I arrived last Friday on an Air France jet, direct from Manila, it has just turned cold. The first couple of days were warm and sunny, but Sunday it rained – and the wind chill factor made it topcoat and light-gloves weather. When GMA’s plane landed, however, the sun had come back out.

She was greeted at Orly by Deputy-Director General for External Affairs and Cooperation Ahmed Sayyad, and both Ambassador Hector Villarroel (two R’s, his name gets misspelled too often but he’s the uncle of movie star Carmina), and Precious.

GMA told me that this was a special day because it was her Papa’s birthday. If Cong Dadong had been alive, he would have turned 93 last Sunday.

GMA is billeted in the Hotel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde (deceptively a peaceful place, but this is where King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were guillotined). Now the only danger existing in that square is the speeding traffic. French drivers are just as bad as our own, and come to sudden stops in the most unusual places, such as in the middle of the crossing.

The Crillon is entitled to wear a crown on its emblem because it was always by appointment to their Majesties, the monarchs of France – long vanished into Republicanism. In this hotel, most of the Presidents, Prime Ministers, sultans and Saudi princes who visit Paris sojourn.

Uneasily, it is also right across a narrow street – the Rue Boissy d’Anglais – from the American Ambassador’s palatial residence.

The latter "fortress" is guarded night and day by platoons of gendarmes, with automatic weapons. Some of the blue-suited gendarmes, though, look Arab or North African. (Their breast-tabs sometimes say "Mohammad" or "Ibrahim".) Let’s not forget that many Frenchmen come from North Africa, where Algeria used to be a "department" of France, entitled to representation in the National Assembly and easy access for Algerians, until it got its independence from the late General Charles de Gaulle.

It will be in the Ambassador’s residence next-door that US First Lady (FLOTUS in their parlance) will stay.

Pinoy-style, her hubby US President George W. Bush had made Laura head of the US delegation to UNESCO. She was scheduled to make a short speech to the UNESCO conference a few hours after that of our President’s address, but, unlike GMA she was not the conference keynote speaker. That honor went to GMA and the President of Italy, the Hon. Ciampi.

Mrs. Bush, however, who held a reception at the US Embassy Monday night, couldn’t stay for the ceremony marking the "return" of the United States to membership in the UNESCO. This takes place October 1, but Mrs. Bush had to fly to Moscow Tuesday to be a guest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife, Valentina. This was a kind of "return hospitality" since Putin and wife had just been hosted by the Bushes in Camp David where the Iraqi problem and other conundrums had been discussed.

For her part, after her UNESCO keynote speech and a visit to the Assumption College here – she’s an Assumptionista, naturally – where she will also meet members of the Filipino community, GMA is slated to scoot home. To be greeted with the nomination for "re-election" by the ruling Lakas-CMD coalition? I twitted her about The STAR’s banner headline yesterday, but she smiled sunnily – and refused to bite. Que sera sera. She remarked: "You never give up, do you?"

Then she giggled goodnaturedly.

* * *

I must say she never runs out of battery. Having sped to New York and the UN, then met with Filipinos in Jersey City, next leaped over to Rome for her meeting with the Holy Father, GMA seemed completely unrumpled.

She recounted that the Pontiff, Pope John Paul II, had virtually collapsed two days before their scheduled meeting, but he had recovered enough to fly down from his Summer Palace, the Castel Gandolfo, to keep their appointment in the Vatican.

GMA spent 45 minutes with the ailing Holy Father, but declined to say what had been the topic of their conversation save for the observation that he was very much up-to-date about the Philippines, and even the Mindanao problem. Most of her time was spent with Cardinal Soldano, who is described as the "Prime Minister" of the Vatican.

Did she hear the "voice of God" urging her to run for re-election? Only the usual Mona Lisa smile signalled her retort to that query. Since her pilgrimage to the Eternal City there appeared to be not one taray bone in her body. But that mood will return. On the advice of Endika Aboitiz, the President cancelled a dinner reservation at the Tour d’Argent and opted for an obscure restaurant at 49, Rue Volta, a tiny street right across from another interesting spot, the Tel-Aviv Pizza restaurant. (Fortunately, on Sunday night, Osama bin Laden or al-Ghozi was not working the night shift).

The restaurant was called ANAHI, and was supposed to be Paraguayan, but the lady proprietor was Mexican, the chefs Argentinians, and the food had a touch of the Middle East. But the steak and empanadas were delicious, the corn succulent, and the dulce de leche and leche flan reminiscent of home. Endika had chosen the place because, he recalled, this was where French President Jacques Chirac had brought German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for an "unusal" dinner treat.

* * *

There’s no place in Europe like Paris. Its ambience – which Erap finally and fondly learned about – remains radiant. When you whisk around its splendid streets and grands boulevards (thanks to Baron Haussman), it remains true to its tag, The City of Light. Joan of Arc remains golden in her saddle, her banner upraised, in the Rue des Piramides.

Yet Paris is becoming more and more notorious for street crime. Snatchings, muggings, violent happenings.

Last Thursday, the Presidential "advance party" arrived at Charles de Gaulle (Roissy) airport. They were proceeding to town in three vans. Monchee Dulay of the Malacañang Protocol office, one of the team leaders, was in the middle van, when the convoy was stalled in traffic on the expressway near the peripherique.

Suddenly, the vehicle’s window "imploded". She thought there had been a bomb detonated nearby – but was surprised when a man in a leather jacket and bike helmet smashed into the van through the shattered window, reached over her to grab her carry bag, then jumped out onto a waiting motorbike handled alongside by a confederate.

As soon as the daring robber had seized Monchee’s bag, containing her passport, credit cards and all her money, the duo sped away on their getaway motorbike. She learned later that such attacks are frequent on the road leading from the airport. The bike-robber smashes in your car window, reaches halfway in, and seizes whatever valuables are on hand, even suitcases.

So beware. The City of Light is also the city of the light-fingered.