Who can lead the disunited Opposition?

All this excitement about FPJ. If he really decides to run, he’ll give President GMA a run for her money. Perhaps, even the Commission on Elections might . . . er, "defect".

But FPJ mustn’t believe that, just because he’s "da king" of the hearts of millions of movie-fans, this will be sufficient to propel him to victory. He’s still relatively low in the poll surveys, the latest being the Social Weather Stations where he’s only number 5, even below Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, who’s 4, and GMA, who got 3.

It’s possible FPJ’s hemming and hawing, his hesitation, his sphinx-like attitude, is what’s keeping him down in popularity ratings. A forthright declaration of intent, which – despite all the hand-signals and even backroom admissions he’s been making – the public still hasn’t received, might give him a rocket-boost capable of shaking the pillars of Malacañang. When da king, the "fighter for the right" his celluloid-image portrays him as being, finally takes to the hustings, he might be able to deliver that old magic to two generations of movie worshippers who’ve faithfully followed his career. However, it’s a quantum jump from "image" or mere cinema-fame to reality. Arnold Schwarzenegger managed that leap between two worlds – but let’s not forget – California is Hollywood’s home base, and he had the added cachet of having married into the formidable, tireless, dynamic Kennedy clan. He even could brandish a lone Spanish phrase with panache, Hasta la vista, Baby!, which indubitably garnered him a barrel of votes from California’s Chicanos and Hispanics. A little "hasta" is basta when you’ve got the biceps of Terminator 3 to flex in addition to your thick Teutonic accent.

What has FPJ got right now but screen "action hero" masculinity and a "Good Guy" reputation?

When I saw him last Thursday night, when we both received the Gusi Peace Prize, I asked my old friend FPJ: "Ronnie, are you running?" He grinned, and replied: "Bukas na lang." (In effect: "I’ll let you know tomorrow.") His lovely wife, a former star herself, Susan Roces, merely smiled and shrugged. Since FPJ didn’t say "no way", but "bukas" (tomorrow), I took this answer to be a "yes".

Indeed, when he gave a brief award-acceptance speech in Pilipino, he flashed two fingers for "peace." This is the body-language of a candidate. Were those two fingers, also indicative of "V for Victory" ala Churchill?

Alas, FPJ must face the fact that he’s no Winston. In the case of the President (in retirement in the calaboose) who’s egging Ronnie to run, at least Erap Estrada was a mayor, a senator, and a Vice President before ascending to Malacañang. What’s Ronnie got to offer? He must de-monstrate that he’s not just to – cite the old expression – a "pretty face". He must show his wares in the months to come – unless he chickens out and decides, at the last minute, not to go for the brass ring and the leadership of our troubled nation.

The Filipino people are looking for strong, principled, courageous leadership: A tough President who punishes criminals dealing out to them the death penalty if they deserve, in order that the evil ones in our midst, including their evil lawyers, will finally realize the law cannot be bent, misused to protect the ungodly, inflict more pain on the victims or their survivors. The law still has to demonstrate it possesses teeth sharp and powerful enough to grind the crooked, corrupt, and murderous, into dust. These days, we rush to the defense of Chief Justices, yet justice itself seems powerless, or, worse, lacks the will to uphold and defend the victims of criminality and injustice, and protect the innocent.

Who can provide this kind of leadership?

The next query is: Can FPJ win as an Opposition candidate? The trouble is that he is not . . . well, not yet, or perhaps will never be, the "Opposition candidate". Already, too many are running in the Opposition: Ping Lacson and Raul Roco for starters.

If the Opposition cannot get its act together, then GMA will surely be "re-elected". She’s got the best-organized and best-funded party: The Government of the Republic. Will she use the Government? She’s already doing so.

* * *

The three-day sojourn of US President George W. Bush in Britain was punctuated by two major, explosive events. He went to London to visit the Queen, as the old saw goes, but even more so to visit his most faithful ally, the UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair. Thus it was both painful and timely that Islamic terrorists blew up the British Consulate in Istanbul (Turkey) plus the Turkish headquarters of the London-based HSBC (Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corp.), killing 27 people including the British Consul-General himself, Jack Short. What a terrible tragedy those twin-attacks were, and what horrible carnage was inflicted! (Who sez that Muslim rebels or terrorists don’t attack during the holy month of Ramadan?)

The fact that the Turkish branch of the worldwide Islamic terrorist movement, al-Qaeda (with branches here in the form of Jemaah Islamiyah, of Bali-bombing notoriety), had impudently calendared those assaults to coincide with Blair’s meeting with Bush was not lost on anyone, particularly Tony Blair himself. Mr. Blair, his countenance mirroring both anguish and determination, threw the terrorists and the world the right message, bravely declaring that rather than being discouraged, disheartened or deterred, Britain would pursue the war against terrorism with even more vigor. "There must be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in confronting this menace," Blair had asserted.

Outside, a howling mob of 100,000 to 200,000 Londoners were marching through the streets, calling for the heads of both Bush and Blair, and demanding the war be "stopped". How can the war be stopped, when not only Britain and America, but all of us – yes, including us in the Philippines – are under attack? The London protesters included the wife of a US soldier now serving in Iraq, who demanded her husband be brought "home" plus the usual Liberals and anti-war, anti-American, and anti-Blair activists – but didn’t you detect, from the newsreels, a predominance of British Arabs, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Albanians, Somalis, Nigerians, Kosovars, and other Muslim immigrants in the parade’s order of battle? Susmariosep – the capitals of Europe, from London to Paris and Berlin are fast turning Muslim before our very eyes. (Christianity will soon become the minority religion, I suspect).

The second shock came just as Mr. Bush was preparing to fly out. Two rockets – would you believe? – launched from donkey-drawn carts struck the Palestine Hotel and the next-door former Sheraton Hotel, two Baghdad hostelries crowded with foreign correspondents, aid workers, Americans, and other expatriate personnel. Yesterday, by the way, car-bombs again exploded in Iraq, killing 15 – among them Iraqi policemen.

The bombers are on the offensive. What shall we do? Surrender?

The Istanbul blasts, if anything, were favorable to Dubya Bush. He had begun to sound shrill in his speeches, despite the logic and courage of their content, when he sought to explain why the US was intent on fighting terrorism so furiously that it carried this war to Baghdad. The Istanbul attacks have served to remind everyone that terrorism is the most cruel form of blackmail, and if we yield to blackmail there will be no end to our travails. The blackmailers will constantly demand more and more.

The Thursday truck-bomb blasts in Istanbul, moreover, came only five days after two of the Turkish city’s leading Jewish synagogues were hit by Islamic car-bombers. The pity of it is that many more Turkish workers, shopkeepers, passers-by – all of them Muslim – were among the 23 people killed and 300 wounded, than the Jewish Sabbath Day worshippers who were supposedly the targets of the attacks.

Let’s face it. Turkey is no longer the secular state founded by great reformer and modernist Father of his country, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, on the ruins of the dying Ottoman Empire. The Turkey envisioned by Ataturk had been that of a religiously tolerant, not pan-Islamic society, in which the legalistic principles he laid down would be protected by the Army. The last elections swept an Islamic Party into power, and the current Prime Minister, though he has attempted to disguise it with words of moderation, used to be a fire-breathing Islamic activist, prayer-leader and poet.

Many of Turkey’s 66 million people, almost all Muslim, are turning fundamentalist and anti-West. Despite Turkey’s longtime membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), this is the new harsh reality. The eternal flame at Ataturk’s magnificent marble mausoleum in Ankara is in danger of being extinguished.

Will Istanbul now be admitted into the 15-member European Union? In the light of recent events, not bloody likely. It will be, I believe, far more energetic in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

This is the way the world spins. I wonder why everybody‘s too afraid, or at least too polite to admit it: Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise, and Christianity is under attack. (Rampaging Muslim mobs have just burned down 15 Christian churches in Nigeria.)

An interesting sidelight to the attack on the two Jewish synagogues in Istanbul is the revelation that there are scores of thousands of Jews in Turkey, mainly in that city on the Bosporous. These are not "new" Jewish immigrants. Most of them are fourth-or fifth-generation. During three visits to Istanbul, this writer discovered that quite a number of shopkeepers and shopgirls could speak Spanish. I inquired why. It turns out they were Ladinos or Shephardic Jews who fled from Spain during the brutal Spanish Inquisition in which Jews were being jailed, interrogated by the berdugos of the "Holy Office", and even being burned at the stake in what is today Madrid‘s most charming square, the Plaza Mayor. The Spanish-speaking Ladinos fled, among other places, to Istanbul, where the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire had offered them sanc-tuary and asylum!

Now, they’ll once more be on the run – from a new and vicious intolerance, and a distorted misinterpretation of the wishes of God or Allah.