The House capitulates / Villaruel enacts own tragedy

For about three weeks, the nation rode the whirlwind on the impeachment issue. And for a time, there was the danger the republic would take off like a cuckoo bird in the void. But the Supreme Court refused to scare. It saved the day with a 13-1 vote that hit the House smack dab on the kisser. The effect was like Sonny Liston vomiting his mouthpiece as Muhammad Ali – né Cassius Clay – broke his jaw in the first round. Not since the Senate impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada had we all teetered on the meat cleaver, wondering whether we would ever survive the suspense.

Well, we did, thanks to several factors.

Speaker Jose de Venecia shifted roles from political palooka to political pontiff. When he announced "I am constrained to respect the decision of the Supreme Court", an earlier turbulent House, wracked by storms, simmered down and buckled to its knees. The Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) powered by businessman Eduardo (Danding) Cojuangco stopped playing the bagpipes of all-out war against Hilario Davide and beat a disgraceful retreat. The comic relief, as usual, was provided by Rep Digalen Dilangalen. He rose like The Incredible Hulk to demand that all positions in the House be declared vacant, including the speakership. A moment later, he was a lisping Rastus, all the phoney courage hissing out like air from a busted beachball.

The two initiators of the impeachment charges, Brat Pack biggies (or is it smallies) Reps. Gilbert Teodoro and Wimpy Fuentebella, tried to hang on. But they knew an avalanche when they saw the avalanche. Probably on orders from Danding Cojuangco, the first muted his insolence, the second retreated all the way to Casablanca. They didn’t nickname him Wimpy for nothing. Come to think of it, he was the hate object of almost everybody who wanted to bust their TV sets whenever they saw Wimpy’s mug on the screen. So young. So pompous and pretentious. Little Lord Fauntleroy with Size 30 pants.

But we are not pulling out the bubbly. The champagne can wait.

The impeachment scandal cum constitutional face-off between Congress and the Supreme Court had the nation peering down the cliff. It proved even the last bastion of constitutional democracy, the Supreme Court, was not safe anymore. It proved the audacity and temerity of one man alone, Danding Cojuangco, could come close to tearing down the Republic. It proved the system had come to roost in slime and slosh. Even former UP president Jose Abueva said so in a TV interview, underlining the fear of many that our democracy was fast withering on the vine. It proved that the future, particularly the 2004 elections, bode more ill since the nation’s leadership and the citizenry were furiously beating the gongs of social unrest.

And yes, it proved the Marcos dictatorship had re-emerged like the ghost of Banquo. I see faces and full-page ads like the October 28 Movement. And I instantly know a supposedly dead past is not dead at all. They are around, some of the drumbeaters of Ferdinand Marcos, and they scare me no end, for they have tails and pitchforks. They are out to disturb the streets once again, make them heave and explode. They believe like the scheming Rothschildes of Europe, that the time to reap more fortunes is when blood flows in the streets. Then there is the military and there is the Left.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo didn’t profit much even if finally she had no hesitation accepting the Supreme Court’s 13-1 verdict. She said: "We did not come this far in our long history as a nation to establish a constitutional democracy just to tinker with its basic principles." She sought to stamp her own imprint on the crisis by proposing a Covenant – a "principled solution". But hardly anybody was listening to GMA anymore. She waffled clumsily by joining Hilario Davide at the Supreme Court mass a week ago. From the outset, GMA should have administered the lash to Lakas-CMD, whipped her followers into line, upheld the Constitution. But she didn’t. And there lay a sorry tale of walking the tightrope, falling off, then seeking redemption by proposing her ill-conceived covenant.

No, I don’t think that this early, self-anointed messiahs of the military and right-wing politicos, will make a grab for power. They can threaten, they can huff and they can puff, but there’s just no way now for them to crash into Malacañang.

I believe the Command Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines remains loyal to her. For how long, I cannot say for sure. But attempts like the July 27 aborted mutiny at Oakwood dramatically showed the mutineers have no muscle, no core ideology, no battle spunk even as soldiers. And if Sen. Gregorio (Gringo) Honasan remains their role model, forget it. Gringo is no Rambo at all, no Richard the Lion-Hearted, not even D’Artagnan. His record of seven or eight failed coups should land in the Guinness Book of World Records. Gringo is the Chocolate Soldier par excellence.

A captain’s (or was it a colonel) failed seizure of the NAIA Control Tower several days ago also proves military-police muscle at the top will continue to support GMA. A swallow doesn’t make a summer. And neither will one or two more Oakwoods. The people are not ready for that yet. My information – very reliable is that our top soldiery has absolutely no relish today to grab Malacañang. Not unless our streets heave with massive street demonstrations. And not unless there could be a repeat of the so-called EDSA Tres when thousands of the poor, instigated by fascist oratorio, crashed into Malacañang May 1, 2002, then retreated in the face of police and military contingents mounting a bloodless counterattack.

And so the nation is back to the electoral hustings.

Fernando Poe Jr. seems to be taking a lot of time to make up his mind. Although the betting is that in a week’s time or so, FPJ will fling his fedora into the presidential ring. If and when he does, I don’t think it will make much of a difference. The cards and the Cassandras have it that GMA will simply be unbeatable because she has the biggest machine, all the money in the world, all the storm troopers. And she has all the coercive weapons (whatever that means) to beat back the pack and that includes Raul Roco. If there should be no elections, well, that’s another story.

* * *

The death by murderous ASG musketry of former Col. Panfilo Villaruel Saturday morning continues to mystify one and all.

Until today, there is no sign or evidence whatsoever that this brave and intrepid man was part of a larger military-political plot to inflict a huge destabilizing wound on the underbelly of the GMA government. The signs increase that he mounted the airport control caper all by his lonesome. And if he did, he was ready to die. He was the doomed man of Aeschylus, tragedy writ in his mind, more tragedy in his deeply troubled heart.

And so he died. What is at issue now is whether the Airport Security Guard overreacted and overperformed when time came to rub Panfilo Villaruel out. They didn’t just shoot him. They poured bullets into his face, and the funeral parlor had to rearrange his features so he would still look human. The charge of overkill appears to have some weight, like killing a coachroch with a Cruise missile. President GMA denies charges of overkill. And Transport and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza insists it was all in a day’s work. GMA of course will not fire Mendoza, former PNP chief, now one of her prime Palace stalwarts.

The question arises why did Villaruel choose the airport control tower to stage his last stand? Well, I suppose he figured he wanted a huge captive audience to hear him out, and what better place than the NAIA control tower. People who know him well, and that includes former T & C Secretary Josie Lichauco, who was his boss for years, told me Villaruel was a man of dignity and honor, better still a patriot. Josie denies the ex-Air Transportation Office chief was nuts. She nonetheless admits he was a very emotional man, often a lone crusader against graft and corruption.

Well, as we said earlier, Panfilo Villaruel must have flipped.

He was one of a kind, a tragic Karamasov figure doomed to enact his own tragedy, particularly these days when the Filipino citizenry lurches on a crazy, swaying trapeze. This is the way I felt during most of the four years of Japanese Occupation, when the kempeitai lorded it over the nation and Gen. Douglas MacArthur was far, far away. America carved out its "Europe First" policy and the "Asia First" stalwarts crumpled. Europe had to be saved first even as we guerrillas in the mountains sang God Bless America in full-throated ardor. Now, no foreign force occupies our country, but the feelings, the emotions are the same. We are occupied territory. What makes the situation bizarre and this is what probably hit Panfilo Villaruel like an iron ball is that our occupying masters are Filipinos who belongs to the elite, the ilustrados. They use the military and the police to treat us anew like indios or "those crazy Flips" as though the Spanish conquistador and the conquering Yankee had never left our shores. But that is exactly what the situation is today.

And Villaruel couldn’t take it. He virtually committed suicide.