Fearless forecast / Bangon! throbs on

It has been my wont as a journalist these past decades to forecast the course of events, a soothsayer so to speak, blowing mystical mumbo-jumbo on a crystal ball in a dark, curtained and spooky room. Don‚t laugh. It all started in the 50s during the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Asswociation) basketball tournament. I was a sports columnist then. The NCAA owned the whole burgh. It was so popular no other item in town, no other event or issue, not even presidential elections, could surpass the NCAA‚s grip on the popular imagination.

The varsity basketball teams of Ateneo and La Salle were the toast of the town, as they still are at times during the current UAAP (University Athletic Association of the Philippines) basketball championships. Moro Lorenzo, Caloy Loyzaga, Tony Genato, Kurt Bachmann, they ruled the roost. Every Ateneo-La Salle cage encounter was thunder packaged by Thor atop Mount Olympus. And oh boy, those were my days as the most sought after sports seer in town, a prognosticator of the purest ray serene, alternately maligned or praised to the high heavens. Ask the old timers.

Well, the times, they have changed.

Today, the top item is the presidential elections scheduled for May 10 next month. The top protagonists, replacing Ateneo and La Salle, are President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) and Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ). In second billing of course are Raul Roco, Panfilo Lacson and Bro. Eddie Villanueva. But as of today, given the latest trends of Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations, GMA and FPJ are close to hitting the homestretch next month ahead of everybody else.

Both have entered the presidential wars with munificent and formidable means.

GMA has all the resources of a sitting president, money in the billions, a monster machine that even Gargantua would envy and – many say – the built-in coercive and cheating mechanisms that could serve her hand and foot when the time comes. Wiping off a two, even three million vote lead of FPJ, they say, would be easy. The top generals of the military establishment and police are at her beck and call. And what‚s more, George W. Bush is perceived to standing by, ready to succor her if the going should get really rough, if, for example, civil war impends.

Time and circumstance, it is added, are also in GMA’s favor.

At bottom, despite the Filipino’s flair for fiesta and festive operetta perfectly symbolized by presidential elections, the bands, the celebrities, a multitude of entertainers, the sudden flow of easy money to buy or cadge their votes, handsome donations to the Christ Child or the Virgin Mary in every hamlet, the Pinoy is now scared. Yes, scared. He or she would have easily hoisted the cult figure of FPJ to the high heavens in past elections, as they did that of Erap Estrada. Now they are not so sure any more. At ground level, they find their lives have become more miserable, the circumstances in which they live more oppressive. Poverty has stuck deeper in their craw.

But let’s talk about that later in this column.

Now FPJ. Not even Hollywood could have come up with Ronnie Poe’s kind of fantasy. The nation’s poverty has served him well, as well as the ignorance of the masses, their predilection for messiahs and savior symbols, their growing antipathy if not hatred for the elite, for the politicians who promise them heaven and only give them hell. They abominate the Yale, Harvard, Wharton, MIT, Stanford leadership types who vomit their high class education not to serve the citizenry, but simply themselves and their peers. A population bloated to 83 million largely sees hope in FPJ.

FPJ may have the ignorance of a door knob. But so what. He is our FPJ, the masses say. All they need to further believe in him is to see him. And so they pour out by the hordes whenever FPJ campaigns in their town. This is, I think, an extension of the Filipino’s Black Nazarene syndrome. All you have to do is haul out the recumbent, suffering, mournful figure of the Black Christ every year. He doesn’t have to speak. He doesn’t have to emit anything intelligent. But once He is out on the streets, there is a spiritual hush, gush and gulp all around. There is a baying of prayer, a sea of people requited they have seen the Black Christ, crossing themselves, touched by the event as if touched by a miracle.

This is FPJ’s big advantage. He doesn’t have to have brains. His is the cult of a towering Panday personality that feeds on the ignorance of a people who have been ruthlessly exploited by the politicians and the elite.

And yet, even as I say this, at this stage of the ballgame, I am inclined to believe GMA will win the May 10 elections. Not that she is more popular. Not that she has the esssential qualifcations. Not that she projects any kind of presidential credilbility or integrity. Her three-year presidential record is shot through with SONAs that pledged total war against crime, graft and corruption, poverty and, in the end, achieved really nothing. GMA projected illusion through photo-ops (Ina ng Bayan, Ate Glo, Gloria Lavandera, the Iron Lady, Woman in Black). But the Illusion remained illusion. Nothing about GMA’s elusive character came through with any kind of burnished metal that was noble, lofty, gripping, exemplary. The shadow of Pidal alwys hovered.

The situation today is much worse than it was when she took over the presidency at the EDSA Shrine about three years ago, Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilardio Davide swearing her in. She boasts of experience. What experience? It was a failed experience, almost a shipwreck.

But she could win because of a skewed political, cultural, social landscape. Voters who may have earlier preferred Raul Roco are switching to GMA who now rides a high horse of raw rippling power, leading a caravan of moneybags, government gifts and favors. This FPJ does not have. Anybody who says the electorate, particularly the masses, cannot be bought, must be kidding. When the poor people hurt bad, many of them can be bought.

Look at the huge crowds that now roar their welcome when GMA hoves into view in many towns. They are there for the goodies that the President distributes, and they don’t really care if these goodies were swiped from government agencies or not.

So now the presidential war has narrowed down to a massive slugfest between FPJ, the darling of the masses, whose dominant armor is his enormous popularity, and GMA who has the goodies, the machine, the bureaucracy that counts the ballots, and declares the winners. Only one other president in the past could mount this awesome campaign juggernaut – Ferdinand Marcos. And if EDSA did not occur February 22-25, 1986 the dictator would have won and remained in power.

Is another EDSA, a different EDSA, waiting in the wings? There is no way of knowing right now. So right now, my fearless forecast is that GMA will win. And FPJ will bite her dust.

To the many who have repeatedly asked me if Bangon! remains alive despite its abandonment by Vice President Teofisto Guingona who just joined the FPJ camp, the answer is yes. I say that to Fili Monserrat of Los Angeles and the other Filipinos abroad who enthusiasticallly supported Bangon! since its formal launch Nov. 20 last year.

And there is another matter I have to clarify. Bro. Eddie Villanueva’s Bangon has abolutely nothing to do with our Bangon! movement, the real and only Third Force organization in the country today. In fact, by launching his presidential candidacy, Brother Eddie abdicated his membership in our Bangon! We repeat Bangon! is a non-partisan movement. It was conceptualized and structured precisely to rise above the murderous and scandalous hurly-burly of Philippine politics as this entered the presidential electoral campaign.

In the end, we in Bangon! remain confident Bro. Eddie will return to our ranks when he realizes and experiences the futility of running for the presidency under impossible and overwhelming odds.

We reiterate what Bangon! is all about. It was conceived for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a bloodbath which could happen if an expected post-election turbulence, bordering on civil war or revolution, should explode. We were afraid of the extremes of the military taking over power and an impassioned left stoking the fires of Marxist revolution. We figured Bangon! could build bridges to both organizations and through continuing dialogue structure the outline of a new government system that could enjoy popular approval and support.

That is exactly what members of Bangon! have been doing these past weeks. Without any fanfare or publicity, which could be counter-productive, we have been meeting with individuals or groups representing the military, the Left, the Church or churches, the business community, other sectors of civil society.These meetings have been quite it not very successful. And we in Bangon! are encouraged and enthused. The Third Force throbs.

Yes, Bangon! is very much alive and kicking.